


STRQ

by SomeSortOfCat



Series: The Rose Saga [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), STRQ, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-07-02 08:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 144,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15792543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeSortOfCat/pseuds/SomeSortOfCat
Summary: Years before team RWBY ever set foot on the grounds of Beacon's campus, another team, destined to become some of the greatest huntsmen and huntresses Remnant has ever known, called the academy their home. You know their legacy. Now, re-live their adventures through the memories of the former leader of team STRQ. *Some plot points are fated to change as more RWBY canon is revealed.*





	1. Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> This is the same story you'll find under the same title with the same author on Fanfiction.net, and Wattpad.com. I felt it was high time to spread my work to different sites in an effort to reach a greater percent of the RWBY fandom as I work to make this story into something incredible.

Ruby won’t get up here in time. I can’t watch this. I hear the glass arrow pierce the heart of my daughter’s friend. I’ll be here to meet her, I guess. It’s the least I can do. After all, she and I have something in common: We both died hopelessly, fighting a foe we were fools to even attempt to defeat.

Another sound… _Dare I look? I will_.

The girl is gone, the sound I heard had been her circlet clattering to the floor at Cinder’s feet. Her soul now lays where her body had been, curled up as if asleep. I find myself struck for a moment at how utterly still and tranquil her face is as her consciousness transitions from her unfairly short life into the Beyond with me. Her aura glows warmly about her silhouette, a shimmering red reminiscent of the flames deep within hearth of a welcoming fire. Ruby had finished her climb to the top of Beacon Tower just in time to see the girl die… The look of heartbroken devastation on her face stings my heart.

_You’re too late, sweetie. I’m so sorry. I’ll be sure her passing is… easier than mine._

The Maiden who just murdered the poor girl to my left is now staring at Ruby. For a moment, I can’t help but think helplessly that she is next, and I’ll be forced to watch her die as well. After only a moment more of breathless observation, however, I see my daughter shut her eyes and I feel it: a force, like a powerful shockwave rippling across time and space, emanating from deep within Ruby’s as-yet untapped, near-fathomlessly powerful soul. It’s happening. Even across dimensions, I can almost see the pure rage and sorrow shimmering like waves of intense heat from her body.

Her eyes snap open and a blinding flash, the manifestation of a power unlike anything Cinder has ever seen rushes forth. Even I have to look away from the dazzling display for a moment.

“PYRRHA!”

The scream echoes through the vast emptiness of the beyond around me. The raw emotion… I don’t think I’d ever seen a Silver Eyes take to their Light so ferociously before. The entire scene washes out, nothing but blinding energy radiating away from Ruby’s form. The enormous grimm seems to recognize what was happening. I can sense an emotion radiating from its consciousness that most people don’t believe grimm are capable of feeling.

Fear.

Its eyes dull from blazing scarlet to gray as it begins to petrify, its screech of dismay freezing in its throat as the effects of my daughter’s Light set in. That same fear I felt emanating from the now-frozen wyvern washes across the formerly smug, triumphant face of Salem’s pet Maiden as she struggles to comprehend what she is seeing… This girl, this young, innocent, supposedly harmless girl… My daughter. My Ruby. Her eyes are glowing, a pure-white energy radiating and curling away from her tear-drenched face as she lifts her chin to face down her friend’s murderer.

“ _WHAT_!?” Cinder’s eyes dart back and forth from the stone monstrosity to Ruby. “That’s… That’s impossible!” Squinting against the painful glare of Ruby’s stare, Cinder begins to hurl blasts of flame towards the young warrior before her. To her dismay, Ruby’s movement to avoid the fireballs is so instantaneous, so effortless, I don’t think that anything could even touch her. Scarlet rose petals filled the air wherever she had been moments before, sucked into the vacuums left by Ruby’s darting motions and scorched to embers by Cinder’s misaimed attacks.

Screaming in frustration, Cinder re-constitutes her twin black glass blades. The wickedly keen short swords burst into flame as Cinder’s eyes glow with rage and confusion. Lunging forward, Cinder swung wildly, an undisciplined and desperate blow aimed straight at Ruby’s neck. I know well the sense of perfect focus that my daughter’s mind has entered as she lets the strike fall. At the last possible moment, Ruby flashes into action, deadly scythe arcing through the air as she feints back in a movement quicker than any eye, human or otherwise, could have tracked. Nigh-indestructible steel alloy and magical conjured obsidian meet. The impact rings out across the plateau upon which Beacon is situated… punctuated by a sound like shattering glass and a scream of agony that is cut short into a strained, horrible choking cry.

Fire flashes from Cinder’s left eye as a shard of her own weapon slices across her face and embeds deep into the socket. The resulting cascade of scarlet blood literally sears the flesh on her face as the maiden briefly loses control of her stolen powers and their ever-ravenous flames betray her. A second flow of scalding-hot blood issues from the Maiden’s throat and mouth as another razor-sharp fragment of her blade tears through her larynx and lodges itself inside her neck.

Ruby does not let up, relentlessly pressuring Cinder towards the edge of the tower. Crescent Rose continues to spin through the counterattack, and Ruby flows around the whirling weapon arc like river rapids around stone, one with the blade. Cinder is struggling to back away, eyes wide with shock and pain as she regains control of her magic and summons a gout of flame from her left hand in an attempt to cover her retreat. Ruby easily dodges the blast and, before the maiden can react, pirouettes close to Cinder’s left. A pull of her weapon’s trigger, and the recoil from the specially made 20-millimeter magnum round blasts Crescent Rose’s blade up in a low-to-high strike that cleaves the maiden’s arm, still spewing flame, cleanly off just beneath the shoulder. The severed appendage sails through the air, flames sputtering and finally dying as it plummets over the edge of the tower. Cinder didn’t even have a chance to register what had happened, before Ruby followed the strike up by slamming the twin back edges of the scythe squarely into her chest.

Cinder tumbled to the floor, her severed vocal cords incapable of forming any sound beyond that horrid choking, retching cry. She clutched at her neck, trying to stem the flow of blood from her throat with her remaining right hand while dragging herself away from the vengeful warrior before her with her elbow. Tears from her remaining eye mingle with the blood that still flows freely from her wounds. I watch her crawl to the edge of the tower, looking desperately to the skies for an escape. As if summoned, a screech tears the air above the shattered tower. A greater nevermore. No trouble for my daughter…

…But as I turn, I realize something. Ruby is fading. The Light is receding back into her soul. She cannot yet control her gift; I remember how exhausted I would feel in the early days when I’d first learned how to tap into my own nascent silver-eyed abilities. I can almost feel the wingbeat of Cinder’s escape and as I look, I can see its talons extend down to carry her away… back to her Queen, broken, bloodied, but still very much alive. The fight is over, but I know my daughter’s war is just beginning. Turning back, I wish I could run to my baby girl. My little warrior. She’s propping herself up with Crescent Rose, breathing heavily as her eyes fade from white back to silver and flutter open and closed as the power surge abates.

Ruby is weeping. On the ground before her lay a few pieces of a shattered sword, a dented matching shield, and that bronze circlet: all that remains of the girl whose form now stirs next to me. I look back to Ruby as her exhaustion overpowers her will and she falls into a deep sleep.

I never wanted this for her.

If only I had been stronger.

If only we’d won 13 years ago.

None of this would have had to happen.

“Wh-Where am I?” I turn away from the scene to face Pyrrha, who is now shakily standing as she tries to decide whether or not she recognizes me. “R—Ruby?”

“No,” I answer, which seems to reassure her for a moment that another of her friends isn’t already waiting for her beyond death.

“Who are you then? Are you an… An angel?”

“No, Pyrrha. Nothing like that.” I can’t help but smile comfortingly—A motherly instinct, perhaps—and reach over to place a steadying hand on the brave young huntress’ shoulder. “That was very heroic, what you did. You should be proud. What do you remember?”

“I… It all happened so fast. I know I’m dead. I remember the arrow but I don’t… I can’t… Jaune!” A single, ethereal tear drips from one of her brilliant green eyes, and now another, and another. I see the change on her face as grief overwhelms Pyrrha’s features. Between sobs, Pyrrha stammers, “I just… I left him. I loved him! How? How could I do that? Why? For what?”

“Sshhhh… Sssshhhh,” I hush as I hug her. “I used to ask the same questions of myself when I first met my end.” A pang of regret and pain stabs me now as poignantly as ever as I hear a desperate, rapid wingbeat and turn with my companion to see a new figure arrive in a burst of black feathers atop Beacon Tower next to my unconscious daughter. Pyrrha starts, noticing the scene for the first time.

A moment passes as she surveys the ruins, the stone dragon, and the two still-living figures utterly unaware of our presence beside them. The new arrival is one we both knew, though the man he used to be was quite different from the one Pyrrha had met in this very office some time ago. Tousled black hair shot through with gray, a brow care-creased by sorrow and regret, red eyes the same as his sister’s and the massive transforming scythe he used to call Harbinger attached to the mag plate beneath his tattered old cape. Qrow stares warily for a moment at the colossal beast locked in brittle stone before turning to kneel by Ruby’s side. I can see his wedding band, and my rings, glinting silver upon his right hand. He wore them as a constant reminder of the promise we’d made each other… A promise that neither of us ever got to keep.

I can hear his voice. “I gotcha kiddo. I gotcha.” He gently scoops the daughter that should have been his off the floor and turns towards the elevator shaft, but not before shooting a pensive second glance at the bits of Pyrrha’s old accoutrement strewn about the ground. He knelt again, scooping up the circlet and letting it dangle from his wrist. Hefting Ruby over his shoulder and gripping the elevator cable with his free hand, he leapt and disappeared down the shaft. The scene faded away, leaving Pyrrha and I alone in the featureless white void of the Beyond.

“What… What is this place? What did I just see?”

“This? I don’t know exactly what it is. I call it the Beyond. It’s certainly not what I imagined the afterlife would be. It’s hard to explain but… It shows you things. Your life, people your life touched in some way. Allow your mind to center on any one memory or person for more than a moment or two and suddenly you’ll find yourself there, whether you want to see it or not.”

“I could see anyone?” Pyrrha asked.

“That your life touched. Yes.”

“I want to see Jaune.” Immediately, the featureless void about us shifts into the shapes of rubble, of buildings, of a city street… I recognize it immediately Downtown Vale. Sirens are sounding, but seem far off, as if we are hearing them from underwater. There are people milling about, the entire scene gives off an atmosphere of tense apprehension and fear. Beside a fountain in the center of the crowd sits a boy to which Pyrrha is immediately drawn. Scraggly blonde hair and fair skin, sporting a black hoodie and battle-worn armor from a bygone era. Jaune.

I’ve seen him before, here and there as I visited Ruby from the other side of the Veil over the last year or so. His elbows rest on his knees and his hands repeatedly tense and relax as he anxiously runs them through his hair, his head hung and the tracts of drying tears staining his face clear down to his chin. He looks up, reaches out and asks to borrow a scroll from someone nearby, takes the device, and dials a few numbers. With each failed call, he grows more agitated. Handing the scroll back to its owner, he stands and paces for a few steps. A call from the crowd that I couldn’t quite make out causes him to look up. A young girl with shocking red-orange hair and a boy in a green silk kimono not unlike Mistraline High-Society people wear trotted up to him.

“What happened?” The girl asks as she hugs him. “Are you okay? Where’s Pyrrha?”

“I’m here! Nora! Jaune! Ren! I’m right here!” Pyrrha screams at her team.

I remember when I first passed. My own screams, to Qrow, to Tai, even to Raven. Everyone. It is truly heartbreaking to witness someone else go through the same pain. “They can’t hear you, Pyrrha.”

“No! They have to! I’ll make them!” Pyrrha reaches out to grab Jaune’s shoulders, but her hands pass right through the vision as if it wasn’t really there. She tries again, but it’s useless. She looks back at me, as if I’d betrayed her. I haven’t, of course, but the wounded glance causes me to flinch all the same. After a moment Pyrrha stood, moved opposite Jaune from me and continued to watch.

Jaune had been quietly shaking his head, fresh tears running down his cheeks once again. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Nobody is answering their scrolls on the local channels, and the tower is… She was up there… She went after some woman, the one we heard during the tournament. I…” Jaune paused, trying in vain to clear his face of tears. “I couldn’t stop her. She shoved me into a locker and sent me to go get help. She doesn’t stand a chance against…”

“You don’t know that Jaune! Pyrrha’s the best fighter of any of us, maybe she found a way…”

“You didn’t see what I saw, Nora! Professor Ozpin is dead!”

“What?” Ren and Nora exclaimed while simultaneously exchanging shocked looks. “How?”

“He stayed down in a vault beneath the school to fight this woman off, to give us a chance to escape and find help… But by the time Pyrrha and I got back up to the courtyard we saw her flying up to the top of the tower.”

“But you never saw him die?” Nora asked, perhaps a little too optimistically.

“Jaune’s right, Nora.” Ren hesitates as Nora turns her gaze forlornly at him, as if begging him not to crush any more of her hope, but then continues. “Only one of them would’ve come out of there alive. The professor must be dead.”

“But that doesn’t mean Pyrrha is! You of all people—” Nora shoots a pointed look at Jaune “—You of all people know how strong she is. She trained you!”

“Nora, I want to believe she’s okay. I want to believe somehow, someway she survived, I just…”

“What about that flash? Think that might’ve been her?”

I see the look on Jaune’s face flush with frustration. I can hear the brokenness in his voice as he shouts, drawing looks from among the crowd. “Dammit I don’t know, Nora! I don’t! I…”

“Jaune!” A new voice from somewhere in the throngs of people. People moved aside as Ruby’s teammate Weiss came into view, followed by Qrow, still carrying an unconscious Ruby.

“Weiss!” Jaune and the survivors of JNPR run up to Weiss and Qrow. “What happened? Did you find Pyrrha?”

“What happened to Ruby?”

“Did you see Professor Ozpin?”

Weiss freezes at the sudden volley of queries. None of those questions have good answers, and she knows it. Finally, she looks at Jaune. Stepping forward, she hugs him tightly. “I’m sorry,” is all she manages to say before breaking the embrace and stepping away, extraordinary grief written all over her normally stoic and elegant features.

“Is she…?” Jaune is loath to say the word.

“She’s gone, son.” Qrow steps in, laying Ruby down gently against the curb and putting a hand on Jaune’s shoulder in an unusually empathetic gesture, especially for him. Of course, he knows exactly what Jaune is going through; I watched Qrow go through the same grief 13 years ago. From behind his back, Qrow withdraws the copper-colored circlet and hands it to Jaune. “She went bravely. Followed her destiny right to the end.”

Jaune stares at the circlet for a moment, running his finger along its length as if he were brushing Pyrrha’s bangs over her ear. His lip quivers. His voice shakes. “This… This isn’t what she thought her destiny would be.” Jaune drops to one knee, then down to both, finally sinking to all fours. Gripping the circlet tightly in one hand, he balls his other fist and punches the sidewalk angrily, again, and again, confused, frustrated, and utterly devastated. His whole body begins to shake as Nora and Ren kneel to comfort him, and his anguished wail, the sound of pure, soul-crushing denial draws even more looks from the crowd.

He doesn’t care.

“No… No! NO! Jaune! I’m right here! It’s okay! I’m right here with you!” Pyrrha hurls herself to her knees, trying in vain to throw her arms about the boy’s now quaking shoulders as heavy, painful sobs wrack his whole body. Eventually, she collapses completely to the ground next to him, balling into a fetal position and trying to see into his eyes even though his head is pressed firmly to the ground, whispering as much to herself as to Jaune, “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here… I’m…” Her whispers fade into sobs of her own. There’s nothing I can do except stand beside Qrow and watch the two young lovers, one utterly stricken with grief and the other doomed to be forever tormented by regret as I am, separated by death but bound by memory. Time slips by. I completely lose track—minutes, hours—however long the piteous scene went on is inconsequential. Finally, however, Pyrrha lifts her head and looks up at me. Her dead, bloodshot eyes are completely out of tears to cry.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” is all I can manage.

Pyrrha responds slowly, her voice laden with the weight of her utter heartbreak. “I can’t watch this anymore. Please… Please, make it stop.” She sat up, arms still hugging her knees as she faced away from what lingered on behind her, rocking back and forth as her shoulders continued to quiver quietly. The veil remained open, likely because Pyrrha has not yet learned to clear her mind and will it to close. I watch as Jaune finally stands, hugs his remaining teammates, and helps Qrow lift Ruby and carry her away, leaving the scene of the city street and hushed murmur of frightened civilians as the only sound in the still air of the beyond.

After a few moments, I make my way over to Pyrrha, who hasn’t even looked up since turning away. She flinches when I drape my arm and cloak across her shoulders. A few white rose petals drift off of the hem of the garment and bounce gently across the ground as if they remember doing so in even the slightest breeze back in the world of the living, though indeed there hadn’t ever even been so much as a breath of wind in this plane the entire time I’d been trapped here. I notice Pyrrha shift as her attention is drawn to them.

She says nothing for a moment, but after the petals are almost out of sight she looks back to me, standing and taking a step back. “You’re not the first person I’ve met with a cloak like that.”

“I would imagine that to be so.”

“Are you…”

I nod simply. “My name is Summer. Summer Rose.”

“I knew you looked familiar. Ruby is—was—a good friend.”

“She did her best to avenge your death.”

“Is she okay? I saw her unconscious a moment ago.”

“She’ll be fine. Seeing your fate gave her the strength to beat Cinder, but tapping into power like that is taxing. I remember when I’d do it, I’d be out for hours, even days, before I finally learned to control it.”

“Do… what? I don’t understand.”

“It’s… Well, it’s difficult to explain, Pyrrha. Ruby and I both belong to a line of very powerful warriors. We have abilities—or, powers—call them what you like. Our silver eyes are the only outward sign of them. I don’t know how true it is, but my father always used to say that the things we’re capable of are gifts from the Elder Brother, the god of creation. We were meant to be the protectors of Humanity, the perfect foil to the creatures of grimm during the early years of our kind’s existence. The Silver-Eyed Warriors, the guardians that can slay those monsters by the dozens with just a glance.”

“Silver-Eyed Warriors? That sounds…” Pyrrha stands, perplexed. “If… If your lineage was so powerful, what happened to them all? Why have I never even heard of them?”

I look away. “The same reason you went after Cinder, even when you knew the odds of winning were beyond slim. We have something in common, Pyrrha. We both died for something bigger than ourselves. I suppose you’d call it destiny. My kind, the Silver-Eyes, were stronger, faster, the most naturally skilled warriors in the world—the living embodiment of hope— and now we’re nothing but a line of dead heroes, whittled away by the servants of a darkness most people will never learn about the existence of. Once, there were thousands of us. Now, hundreds of generations later, Ruby is the last that I know about.”

“I suppose that explains her exceptional gifts, for her age. And it always seemed like she was born for the warrior’s life, I mean, nothing ever seemed to bring her more satisfaction than a good fight.”

“I know,” Pausing, I look around at the city street, now full of strangers and shadows. I will the scene to dissipate, and the veil closes. Pyrrha and I are alone once again. “Ruby and I are a lot alike. She’s following in my footsteps, perhaps a little too closely. It reminds me of my days at Beacon.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Well, I am dead.” In any other context, I probably would have thought that funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way.

I thought I saw the corner of Pyrrha’s mouth twitch upward, but she checked the motion and simply replied, “Point taken.”

I don’t even attempt to conceal the wistful sigh that escapes my lips. “My daughter deserves better than… This.” I motioned to the emptiness around me, a featureless white void as far as the eye could see. “My sacrifice only delayed the inevitable, all those years ago. A moderate inconvenience to Salem. She returned, just like she always has, just like she always will… And now that Ozpin’s dead, she has a chance to make a big play. It took him years to come back the last time. Even he can’t control when he reincarnates.”

“Salem? Professor Ozpin… Reincarnation? What are you talking about?”

I realized with a jolt how careless I’d just been. Things I knew about Oz, about Salem, and about the true nature of this unending war... _How much should I tell her?_ I wondered to myself. She just gave her life in a desperate attempt to protect her friends. She thought she’d followed her destiny… And I knew all too well, that sole comfort was all she had at the moment. We’d both crossed with the thought that our sacrifice meant something. But... Everything I knew—What I’d been told, and beyond that, what I’d seen with my own eyes—We were just disposable pieces in something far bigger than either of us could’ve imagined. I’d long given up thinking my death had really meant anything at all. What I didn’t know was if telling her would lead to the same conclusion in her mind. I thought for a moment more, before shaking my head. _Her self-sacrifice is not something I have any right to take away from her,_ I thought. “It’s nothing. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about things here, Pyrrha. Just not now.”

Pyrrha’s piercing green gaze studied me. She could definitely tell I was hiding something from her. I felt a pang of guilt, followed by a confusing sense that I was doing the right thing. She’d understand, I hoped. Thankfully, she didn’t press the issue, instead looking herself up and down, studying her new ethereal form. Her outline was blurred, just as mine was, almost like it was being viewed through the shimmering heat from a road on a summer day. She realized then too that Miló and Akoúo were attached to her back just as they had been in life. She drew them, staring at her sword as though remembering the moment Cinder had shattered it. “I thought that perhaps I’d get to put my sword and shield down in the afterlife.”

“They become a part of you, over time. Part of your soul. Mine stayed with me as well,” I replied, showing Pyrrha Thorn in its bracer on my right arm and moving my cloak aside so she could see Scourge affixed to my back. “I tried throwing them away from me a few times. They’d always end up back in place the second I’d look away from where they landed.

“It’s as if this realm is telling us our fight isn’t over, yet,” Pyrrha observed. I didn’t know if I believed that, but I didn’t reply, for a time. The silence was broken after a few moments by Pyrrha’s surprised gasp as the beyond shifted again began to form a scene around us. I recognized Jaune’s shape forming again, sitting beside everyone who had been present before plus a few other new figures, some of whom I recognized. Yang was there. I’d been following Ruby and Qrow through the battles in Vale and over Beacon… I was glad to see her alive. It took me a moment to realize, however, that she was anything but whole.

“Yang!” I exclaimed, practically leaping over to her to get a better look at the girl that I’d always considered just as much my daughter as Ruby was. Her right arm… It was gone. A tourniquet and medical sleeve were cinched tightly down to the stump, delivering painkillers and healing surfactants straight to wound as she sat dejectedly next to Qrow. Of anyone here I would’ve expected hers to be the face that showed only determination and strength for the sake of her teammates and friends, but as I knelt before her all I saw in her downcast eyes was defeat and fear.

Blake, Ruby’s other teammate, stood by Yang’s side. The faunus girl winced and hissed as a paramedic treated a nasty stab wound on her waist. Sun Wukong was also nearby, leaning heavily on his bo staff from exhaustion but still staring warily away from the group, watching for any movement in the streets around the safe zone that would indicate a renewed attack by the Grimm.

“N…No! No, no…” I looked back, realizing that Pyrrha was beginning to panic. My shock at discovering Yang’s injury was immediately replaced by concern for my companion. She couldn’t keep her mind off of Jaune. That’s why the beyond had showed us anything at all. Her thoughts had wandered in the silence following our conversation, and because of that, this damned place was showing her exactly what she didn’t need to see more of. The same thing would happen to me years ago. I remember my hopelessness back then as I’d watch Qrow drink himself into a bitter stupor over my death, or Ruby crying herself to sleep as Yang would try to comfort her, or Tai sitting despondently in our room for hours, entire days even. I could never make it stop in those days, and now, I could clearly see myself reflected in Pyrrha’s features as she sank to her knees and shut her eyes against the scene.

No. She’s not going to suffer the way I did. I promised Ruby that much.

I had to act quickly. My mind spun as I dug for pleasant memories of my own in an effort to shift the scene. It’s been so long. I couldn’t focus on any one memory more strongly than any other… Until suddenly, an image snapped into my head. My first day at Beacon. 17 years old, just stepping off the transport for the first time, gazing ahead at the sprawling campus grounds. I can almost feel my own trepidation and excitement from that day, just as fresh as if I were actually re-living the event. I didn’t know why that of all things had been my first thought, but I did know I had to act quickly before it became too late. Pyrrha’s palms were pressed against her ears and she fervently begged the scene to go away. The beyond, mercilessly, did the opposite. Her anguish did nothing but entrench the visage even more firmly, pulling it further into focus. I had to concentrate hard, straining to will my fond memory to overpower her own runaway thoughts.

It took a long moment, but finally, the beyond responded. The change in ambient light from the dark of the night sky in real-time Vale to the bright morning a little more than twenty years prior caused Pyrrha to look up cautiously. “What… What happened?”

Barely a second after the query left her lips, I walked past. Not ‘dead’ me. Alive me, eyes bright, full excitement and wonder as my mind processed my new surroundings. Pyrrha gasped confusedly, looking from me to myself and back again. Within a moment or two she seemed to understand what was going on.

I smiled. “I’m not going to let you suffer the same way I did before I learned to manage my thoughts in the beyond. This was just the first good memory I could come up with strong enough in my own mind to overpower your focus on Jaune.”

“I…” Pyrrha continued to look around, thoughts probably turning wistfully back to the way things were before the events of the last night. Turning back to me, she smiles. “Thanks. I don’t think I’d have been able to stop it.”

“It’s not about stopping it, Pyrrha. It’s about letting go. I realize how that sounds… And no one could expect that of anyone after only a few hours.” I sighed at the bitter reality of the situation before continuing. “No one should ever have to expect anyone to let go of anything from a life that was stolen from them. But that’s the way things work here.”

Pyrrha nodded, wiping away the last of the tears that had started to fall moments before. Staring at the me of years past as I stood nearby, my companion marveled for a moment. “You and Ruby look so alike.”

“Looked.” I say simply, putting my hand on her shoulder as I step closer. “This was a little more than twenty years ago. Feels like it was yesterday, though.”

I made my way down the main thoroughfare, a long, arrow-straight path of precisely cut hexagonal cobblestones, along with the rest of the first years who’d disembarked the transport ship with me. Everything was so new, so different… Patch was small and Signal, the combat school near the house my dad and I had moved to last year, had barely more than forty students across all six grades at any given time. I knew everyone’s semblance, I’d seen every weapon, I’d even sparred with most of them at some point or another.

Here, I knew no one. Over a hundred students had debarked my transport alone, from all across Vale, from different combat schools all over the continent and beyond, even. Not a single familiar face anywhere in the crowd. I remember the wonderment I’d felt moments before morphing into tense apprehension, a feeling I had been very familiar with at this point, given how many times my dad and I had uprooted and moved as I grew up. I watched myself slip my headphones on and pull my hood over my head, a nervous habit that I think subconsciously helped me feel invisible. Redundant, given my semblance, but I’d do it anyway.

The scene began to fade out. I’d felt Pyrrha’s mind relax and her own thoughts cease to vie for control of what the beyond showed us, so I in like fashion began to clear my own mind too. Unexpectedly, however, Pyrrha lifted a pleading hand. “Wait!”

“For what?” I asked, perplexed.

“I want to see what happens if… If that’s alright.”

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, though. Same story, different characters.”

“That can’t be true. You graduated, became a huntress. You had a daughter. Your story already ends far better than mine did. I’d love to see it all unfold.”

The fading scene slowed in its diaspora, froze, and then slowly began to re-focus as I allowed the memory to take forefront in my mind once again. “Very well. If it will help you keep your mind off of things. I certainly don’t mind.”

“Thank you, Summer. Ruby told me what little she knew about the team her parents had been on together. What was your team name again?”

I watch as teenage me walks wordlessly along with the mix of students, content enough for now to stay absorbed with my music. “STRQ.” I said finally. “We were team STRQ.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Message: 'STRQ' is currently undergoing rewrites in which I aim to improve the narrative's compatibility with the most recent established canon, improve narrative flow for a more realistic storytelling pace, and more tightly connect this story with the other ongoing works in 'The Rose Saga'. Thank you for your patience. Chapter Six: Initiation (Part II) is the most recently-updated chapter as of January 31st, 2019.


	2. Welcome to Beacon

**Chapter Two: Welcome to Beacon**

Crowds like this made me anxious. To say I’d had a sheltered upbringing would be a tremendous understatement, and through all the times we’d moved around through my childhood, each new place had had one thing in common. Seclusion. My current surroundings, however, were anything but that. I was now in the middle of the biggest crowd of people I think I’d ever seen. I mean, I wasn’t _scared_ or anything, but still. Probably best to stay to the edge of the group.

On I walked, doing everything I could to avoid eye contact with people. That was easy enough, as there was plenty to take in all around me. The campus truly was beautiful, like something out of one of the books Dad used to read to me every night. The main courtyard through which I now walked was dotted with trees: forever fall maple, emerald evergreens, the mix of such vibrant colors in the mid-morning light enough to make me instantly fall in love with this part of the campus. Reflecting pools were arrayed symmetrically about the courtyard, in the nearest of which I could see a mirror-perfect image of the enormous arched colonnade that surrounded its perimeter.

My head spun with the wonder of it all. As the group moved further down the thoroughfare, we passed a massive statue of a huntsman and huntress from the time of the great war, the former standing triumphantly with his sword raised high, the latter with her axe lowered, a serene, reflective look etched perfectly across her stone features. Both stood atop an outcrop of solid rock that looked to have been hewn straight from the top of some mountain somewhere, at the base of which stood a creature of Grimm. The alpha beowolf, bony jaws parted in a strikingly lifelike snarl, had its clawed, grasping hand raised high, frozen forever in the granite, its strike never to fall.

The buildings of the campus proper seemed to grow ever larger as I continued on, my sense of awe never once faltering. Intricately carved stonework and detailed statuary abounded, and here and there lay polished bronze plaques that served as small memorials, immortalizing the actions of some past hero, living or dead, who’d once called Beacon home. Looming above it all, however, was the CCT tower. It had been impressive as viewed all the way from Vale, at least to me. I’d never been anywhere near any of the big cities my entire life. To now be walking near the base of a building at least three hundred meters taller than any I’d ever seen… It was overwhelming to say the least. Up and up and up it went, its sharply peaked apex higher than the clouds that drifted lazily past. I had to crane my neck all the way back to see it.

I was so absorbed by the thought of what the view must look like from all the way up there, however, that I forgot to mind my step. To my surprise and chagrin, when my left foot tried to take the next step forward, nothing happened. The toe of my boot caught the edge of a paver that was beginning to be uplifted by the root complex of a nearby oak tree, and before I could react my bags, my dignity, and I were all sent sprawling across the ground. I ended up flat on my face, and I could feel blood welling in scrapes on my hands as I rolled over to my back and attempted to sit up. I activated my aura, and felt the minor cuts on my palms begin to repair themselves immediately. Too bad there was no quick fix like that for my pride. Looking around, I paused my music and removed my headphones. I Immediately wished I hadn’t, though.

High-pitched, irksome laughter had erupted from a nearby onlooker. My head whirled to find the mocker, and found her I did, standing a few feet away. She was a bit older than me, second-year student probably. She had on black and grey striped thigh-socks, a short black cupcake skirt, and wore more studded jewelry and piercings than I could count. In her teeth she gnashed a wad of blue bubblegum, completing the look of the archetypal gender-bent playground bully, as she continued her annoying chortle along with the three hulking but dimwitted-looking boys that flanked her.

“First day an’ already provin’ she can’t hardly walk,” she cackled as soon as I made eye contact with her. She blew a huge bubble, which popped obnoxiously before she went back to gnashing the candy, lips still parted in a disingenuous grin. “Pretty sad what the combat schools is givin’ my professors to work with these days.” I didn’t say a word. “Whassa matter sweetie? Creep got your tongue?”  After her barbs continued to fail to elicit a response, her tone became somewhat less gleeful. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to ya, kid.”

I decided it was probably best not to answer her at all. I wouldn’t start any real trouble if she didn’t. I caught movement in my peripheral vision that caused me to look back to my right. About a meter away stood a boy, jet black hair and deep crimson eyes, patched up black pants and gray button-down shirt. “Yeah?” I asked, barely-concealed suspicion evident in my voice. I wasn’t doing so well in the ‘people’ department today. Why should this guy be any different than Bubble-Girl?

“Here.” Unexpectedly, the boy held out his hand. I took it after a moment, and he hauled me to my feet with surprising strength given his skinny frame.

“Thanks,” I said tentatively.

He didn’t reply. He just kinda gave me a look I couldn’t quite place, before he turned to Bubble-Girl. Four or five strides with his lanky legs took him to less than an arm’s length of her. She returned his glare in kind, and blew another bubble that nearly popped against the boy’s nose. The corners of her mouth tilted upward as she continued to gnash the gum.

“Somethin’ I can do for you, loser? That your girlfriend or something?” Bubble-Girl’s venomous smile morphed to an even more toxic scowl.

“Never seen her before. But I think you owe her an apology.”

Bubble-Girl shot a look at the thug to her right. “You hearin’ this, Dez?” The guy who grunted in response was powerfully built, for an 18-year-old. Easily a head and a half taller than the boy who’d helped me, with shoulders twice as broad. He was the biggest of the three, but only just. Bubble-Girl continued to speak, circling to the black-haired boy’s left. “I don’t owe nobody nothing, kid. It’s you first-years what’s gotta earn your keep here b’fore you get any respect from me. Till then—” _WHAM._

As she’d been speaking, the boy she’d called ‘Dez’ had taken a casual step forward. The black-haired boy’s attention had been on Bubble-Girl as she’d circled, and Dez fired off a sucker-punch so powerful it sent him sprawling and skidding back across the pavers right to my feet. I heard a whirring and clicking sound form Dez’s wrist, and looked in time to notice a metallic flash as a set of knuckle dusters retracted back to their concealed position in a bracer he wore beneath the sleeve of his heavy leather jacket. Cheap shot.

Bubble-Girl cackled again as black-haired boy groaned and clutched his gut in pain. “Awww, does the widdle-biddy baby first-year have a boo-boo? Here kid, have some gum!” With that, she pulled out the chewed-up wad that she’d been working between her teeth and flicked it. The instant the nasty projectile hit the boy on the ground, it inflated into a tremendous bubble, engulfing him up to his neck and down to his knees in a pliable, sticky mass.

I looked from the black-haired boy back to Bubble-Girl. “That’s… probably the grossest weapon I’ve ever seen.”

“You should try it some time, trip-hazard,” she grinned again, hitting a button on a black gauntlet she wore on her left wrist. From it, another stick of gum was dispensed into her hand, this one a bright cherry-red. She slipped the candy into her mouth and began to break it down into another tastefully disgusting sticky trap. “Ice-blue raspberry is my favorite, but I just used my last stick on your boyfriend over there. Speaking of which,” a small throwing dagger flashed into her right hand from a rotating drum of them that circled a matching bracer on her other arm. In a single movement, she threw the knife at the black-haired boy, who’d begun to peel one arm out of the bubble that kept him plastered to the ground. The knife sliced the bubble and stuck into one of the pavers by the boy’s head. The bubble deflated, and the gum that composed it froze solid, arresting the boy’s attempts to escape entirely.

“Aw COME _ON_.” The boy growled.

“Now. Like I was sayin’, Ice-blue raspberry’s my favorite. But I think fiery cherry-cinnamon’ll have to do for you.”

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for some witty banter. “Is it sugar-free?”

“What? That’s beside the—No!”

“In that case, can’t. Just brushed, y’know. I’ll pass.” I smiled, and my left hand moved behind my cloak to rest on the hilt of Scourge. Bubble-Girl picked up on the movement, and I saw another throwing dagger eject out of its magazine to her hand. Simultaneously, all three of her goons stepped up and began surrounding me. One hefted a wickedly spiked flail, another smiled as he racked a round into a heavy, bladed, pump-action shotgun, and of course, Dez’ brass knuckles appeared once again in his hands as his mouth twisted into a snaggle-toothed, semi-psychotic grin. This could go pretty badly if I wasn’t careful.

I looked around—turns out there was an audience—hoping someone would step in. A teacher, another student, anyone really. Nobody did, of course. My eyes met those of a girl in the group, black hair and deep crimson eyes just like the boy by my feet who continued to struggle uselessly against the ice that pinned him down. The amused look on her face made it clear she was content to watch events unfold and not get involved, and I looked away to reassess my situation.

I was completely surrounded now. Bubble-Girl’s grin had continued to widen into an impossibly obnoxious Cheshire-cat-like smile. An old lesson of my father’s echoed in my mind: _I love being surrounded,_ he’d say. _They’re to your left, to your right, behind you and in front of you. Heh. They can’t get away now._ He’d always taught me to be aggressive in situations like this. If I didn’t take the offensive first, things could get uglier than they needed to. _Screw it,_ I thought, and activated my semblance. I vanished, a cloud of white rose petals dancing on the breeze where I’d been.

“What the… Where’d she go!?” One of the goons called out. His flail swung through the air where I’d been, smashing into the ground uselessly.

“It’s her semblance, idiots. Dez! Yuri! Ned! Back to back. Don’t let her sneak up on you. Neat trick, girlie. Ain’t gonna save you though.” Bubble-gum girl took up a position next to her goons. “Come out, come out, kid! We only wanna make sure you understand your place while you’re here…”

“HKKKccckk—AckhhhKK!” The surprised choking sound came from Dez, right beside her. He clutched his throat in pain, like an invisible set of claws had him by the neck and wouldn’t let go. Whatever the unseen force was, it yanked downward, forcing him to step forward in an effort to stay upright. When that stabilizing leg was unexpectedly kicked out from under him, however, he fell, faceplanting _hard_ into the pavers. He gasped as Scourge—my primary weapon—released its stranglehold and I dodged away.

“Right there! Get her!” Bubble-gum girl called out. Yuri swung a ham-fisted haymaker blindly in the direction he thought I must’ve gone. I was well out of harm’s way by then, and couldn’t help but laugh at the surprise on idiot number two’s face when his wrist was suddenly snared by the same grip that had choke-slammed Dez a moment before. A yank and a pivot on my part took all the weight and momentum of Yuri’s strike and spun it a full one-hundred and eighty degrees further than he no doubt intended. His fist smashed into Ned’s jaw, sending Bubble-Girl’s third goon sprawling, and as Yuri tried to regain his footing he tripped over Dez, who was trying to stifle a bloody nose and stand at the same time. I fired off a booted kick straight to Yuri’s gut as he tried to lift himself off of Dez, causing him to double over and drop like bag of bricks back on top of thug number one.

“Useless morons.” Bubble-Girl growled as she twirled one of her daggers in her throwing hand.

“Had enough?” I asked from behind Bubble-Girl. She whirled, hurling a dagger at empty air.

“SHOW YOURSELF!”

From Bubble-Girl’s left: “No.” Another dagger. Several students who looked on had to dodge out of the way.

I decided it was about time I ended this, before dumb, dumber, and dumbest picked themselves off the ground or before some onlooker caught a dagger that had been meant for me. I slid low, aiming to sweep-kick Bubble-Girl’s legs out from under her. In a stroke of rotten luck, however, my semblance flickered as it drained and I reappeared for the briefest of moments. Bubble-Girl saw the movement, and with startlingly quick reflexes threw another dagger that pinned my cloak to the ground as I passed. The sudden stop stunned me, long enough for Bubble-Girl to drop-kick the general area she knew my body would be. Her studded boot caught my wrist, sending Scourge clattering across the cobbles and back into view, now that my aura no longer had a direct connection to it.

I had to act fast. Bubble-Girl was readying another dagger, and I was trapped. Thorn. The ring-like chassis of my secondary weapon flicked forward from its storage position on my armored right wrist, perfectly positioned so my hand could grip the central handle that spanned the body of the weapon. The twin, tri-segmented blades were collapsed, stored against the ventral face of my gauntlet with their unsharpened back edges facing outward. As my fingers grasped the handle, however, electromagnetic energy dampers in each end of the grip disengaged and the magnetic connectors at the base of each blade pulled violently towards each other around and towards the outboard side of the ring, locking into place. Simultaneously, heavy pivots built into the connectors swung the folded blades forward with enough torque to extend each of the three segments, and the back edges of the now fully protracted blades slammed together with a satisfying metallic _CLANK._

Bubble-girl threw her dagger. She hadn’t been able to see Thorn extend in my opposite hand, and I saw the surprise and frustration register in her features when rather than the hum and crackle of steel against aura, she heard the high-frequency ringing of a weapon-to-weapon impact. Her dagger ricocheted away from me as I allowed myself to reappear. She already knew where I was, there wasn’t any point in wasting the energy to stay invisible. The wall of students who’d flocked to watch the fight once again parted to avoid the dagger as it sailed, tumbling and ringing still from its impact with Thorn, towards them. This time, however, it didn’t clatter distantly against some far obstruction to its trajectory. Gasps from the students caused both me and Bubble-Girl to look for the reason for the hushed exclamations.

It didn’t take me long to realize what the murmur had been about. There, standing in the gap between two first-years, clutching the dagger between his index and middle fingers in the exact position he’d caught it, stood the headmaster. Professor Ozpin looked from me, to the black-haired boy, to Bubble-Girl, to the three stooges who’d only just managed to pull themselves off the ground. There was a moment of tense silence, before the Headmaster pushed his little spectacles up higher onto his nose and grinned. “Students,” he paused and looked around the perimeter of freshmen and upperclassmen alike before continuing, “I realize you’re all excited to show each other your budding capabilities, and mano-a-mano duels like this are indeed fantastic opportunities to showcase your skills. However, I must ask that you save your energies for sparring class.”

His calmness surprised me. It’s like he was hardly even phased by the fact that two of his students were a blow away from hospitalizing each other… or worse. As if caught by the wind, the ring of students dispersed and went their separate ways. The raven-haired girl I’d seen earlier shared a moment of sardonic eye contact with the black-haired boy before turning and rejoining the coalescing mass of first-years as they continued on towards the auditorium. Professor Ozpin didn’t linger long after either. He turned to walk away, but not before his eyes once again met mine. I could’ve sworn he was studying me, as if something about me drew his attention. But it was only just a moment before he continued walking. As he made his way back across the commons towards the base of the CCT tower, Bubble-Girl brushed past me roughly, collecting the dagger I’d pulled out of my cloak and tossed aside.

“Next time you’re dealin’ with team CNDY, you ain’t gonna have him to save you.”

“I’m counting on it.” I smiled at her as I stood.

She stared me down for a moment, before shouting over her shoulder. “Come on, boys.” Her band of bumbling morons each glared at me before forming up behind their leader and shuffling off towards the dorms. I watched them go, hoping I’d get another chance to finish that fight.

“Ahem.” The black-haired boy, still stuck in bubble-gum ice, looked up at me expectantly. “Gonna help me out here or am I just waiting for this crap to melt?”

“Heh. Looks comfy.”

“It’s really, really not. My arm’s asleep.”

“Pins and needles?”

“Ohhhh yeah.”

I laughed, walking over and retrieving Scourge from its resting place near a bench just off the stone pathway. A flick of my thumb switched the three-position dial built into the grip to its glowing red indicator, selecting the reservoir of ‘burn’ dust stored within the handle itself.

“Uhh… Whaddya gonna do with that?” The black-haired boy sounded nervous. I smiled maniacally, just to mess with him, and unspooled the entire five-meter length of carbon-ceramic nano-hex braid with a pull of the trigger and a flick of my wrist. Spaced along the length of the woven alloy filaments were razor sharp barbed segments, designed to ensure that even a passing glance with the whip would still cause significant damage. I saw the black-haired boy’s eyes widen slightly, the end of the whip lying on the ground a few inches from his face.

I bowed my arm back, the braid responding smartly to the input and lifting off the ground where it seemed to hang for a moment.

“Wait, wait… Bad idea, bad ideaaaAAAAHHCRAP!” The boy’s apprehensive protests quickly became a shout of unmitigated fear as I ripped my arm back down. Ion emitters built in each sharpened link activated, glowing red-orange in a programmed response to the motion. Scourge snapped with a sound like a thunderclap and a bolt of burning hot plasma raced down its length, licks of fire dancing through the superheated air around the whip. The wave of pure heat energy jolted through the braid, jumping from emitter to emitter and arcing like a bolt of burning lightning from Scourge’s barbed terminus straight into the ice that encased the boy.

The sudden change in temperature as the bolt impacted caused the ice to shatter violently, chunks of it flying off in different directions, freeing the young huntsman completely. After a few seconds, he cracked one eye, which he had shut tightly a moment before my strike with Scourge fell. I was standing over him, a pointedly over-satisfied look playing across my features.

“There are a lot of ways that coulda gone really, really badly,” he rebuked, only half in jest.

“But it didn’t.” I reached out my hand, not unlike he had done for me earlier, and pulled him to his feet.

“Thanks.” He smiled. “Got a name, Petals?”

“Summer. Summer Rose. Howabout you, Ice-cube?”

“Nice. And it’s Qrow. Branwen.” Qrow knelt, scooped up my bag from where it had come to rest after I’d tripped, and handed it to me. I took it with a nod. Unexpectedly, however, the shoulder-strap buckle snapped and gave out, which caused my pack to fall and spill my stuff all over the ground.

“Typical. First day of school and I’ve already tripped, made a whole second-year team’s worth of enemies, got a hole in my cloak, and now this.” Qrow knelt to help me pick up my stuff. I half expected my magazines to burst into flames at the touch of my fingers with my luck thus far.

“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been stuck to the ground in some girl’s frozen chewing gum.”

“Hm. Well, as my dad likes to say: you bought the ticket, you had to ride the ride.” I smiled as Qrow scooped up the last of my things and dropped them into my pack. I tried to fix the buckle, but to no avail, so I resorted to cradling the bag awkwardly under my arm as we continued on towards the auditorium.

“Well, your Dad’s got some weird sayings. What’s that even supposed to mean?”

“We were good. You helped me up, and we coulda just walked on and just let Bubble-Girl talk her smack till her teeth rotted from all the gum she chews. But you had to get in her face. I mean, it was heroic, don’t get me wrong, but you squared up within arms-length of four more experienced fighters and got your butt handed to you.”

“I did not get my butt handed to me! And where I come from, someone talks down to you like that, you settle it. One way or the other.”

“Yeah well, you sure settled it.” I shot him a wry look.

Qrow held up a hand and rolled his eyes, sighing as if exhausted. “Please. I get enough of that from my sister. That’s half the reason I helped you y’know, so I’d get a break from her sarcasm.”

“I think I saw her earlier. She the girl with the nodachi? The one with the rotary chamber that looked like it was full of interchangeable blades, not the one with the shotgun built into the hilt.”

“Noticed all that, huh? Yeah, that’s her. Raven.”

“Ohhh, Raven and Qr—”

“Oh my g— Every single time! Yeah, yeah, we’re both named after birds.”

I couldn’t help but snicker. “Kinda my same reaction when someone tells me I’m named after a white rose. Like, ‘Really? Imagine that, I actually have a reason for wearing a _white cloak_ that sheds _white rose petals_ whenever I activate my semblance.’”

“Exactly! Finally, someone else out there actually _gets it_.” We both laughed at that, and continued walking for a few silent moments. I didn’t really know what else to say. This was already one of the longest conversations I’d ever had with someone who wasn’t my Dad. Qrow broke the quiet just as it started to get awkward, thankfully. “So, I take it you’ve got a thing for high tech weapons, huh? Saw those weapon catalogues in your bag, and yours during the fight. Pretty flashy stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, kinda… Okay yeah. I’m a bit of a weapon geek. Figured I might as well be if I’m gonna kill monsters for a living, right?”

“Nah, nah I didn’t say it was weird or anything, I just kinda noticed. The whip looked like some kinda Atlas tech.”

“Well, yeah, it sorta is, actually. I grew up all over, built it when I was going to combat school up in Mantle. My dad knew some pretty well-connected Atlas Specialist Corps types with some kind of tech clearance, and he got me the specs for the braid. Supposed to be for high-speed, super-durable land-based comms in the event the CCTS were to ever go down, so strong even Grimm couldn’t break it, but with a little modification I figured out how to make it channel ionized xenon and neon plasma instead of AC comm waveforms, and how to catalyze that plasma with dust powder to give it elemental effects.

“See, when you split all the excess anions and cations from the ionization process through the plasmoid resonance chamber, you create a weak magnetic field that runs the length of the whip and draws dust up, through the catalyzer and into each contact, where it is ionized and transferred to my target in an attack, with more anions and cations being created in the process, and feeding the cycle even more.  Freeze dust was tricky, but I eventually figured out how to make it still work even if the ion stream is too hot to directly transfer ice through contact with the braid itself. What I can do is…” I looked over at Qrow and suddenly noticed the glazed look in his eyes. “You have no idea what I’m saying, do you?”

“Hm? Oh, ah, yeah. A word, here and there.”

I smiled nervously. “Ahh sorry. You got me going on it and I just got _really_ carried away.”

“Heh. It’s fine. Pretty cool you figured all that out yourself. They got names?”

“Who? Oh, my weapons! Yeah. The plasma-whip is Scourge, and the short sword is Thorn.” I paused for a second. “What about you? I’m actually glad you brought it up. Kinda been dying to ask about that sword on your magplate. All mechanical, no fancy electronics or dust, extendable blade and… I’m guessing shotguns?”

He drew his collapsed sword, pulling a multi-setting trigger one notch back to extend it from carry to full-size. “Hm, you really do have an eye for weapons. I… Well, you actually kinda said everything there is to say about it, actually. Except…” I saw a mischievous look flash in Qrow’s eye. “…This.” He pulled the trigger back the rest of the way. I heard a mechanical whirring noise, saw the exposed gears spinning in the top of the guard. My eyes might’ve watered a little bit when I saw what happened next.

The sword blade rotated to a 90-degree offset from the hilt, sharpened edge out, its five segments splitting and extending while remaining connected on previously hidden interior mechanics. In turn, each of those segments now angled off so that their unsharpened rear edges came into contact, about ten degrees each, to give the blade a wicked curve. A curve, almost like… The grip of his weapon extended, five equal-length sections that all telescoped out in either direction from where Qrow gripped it. A scythe. Dark red blade segments exposed themselves last, flashing out from the interior storage section of the weapon.

If my eyes could’ve turned into little cartoon hearts like something out of an X-Ray and Vav comic right then, they would have. “Woahhhh,” was all I could manage at first. “That’s… A scythe! That’s like… Like the Grimm Reaper!”

“Exactly! Just like her!” Qrow nodded enthusiastically. “Grew up hearing stories about her. She’s the best huntress in the world… I’m gonna be even better than she is one day.”

“Heh. Yeah right. I’ve heard stories of her killing hundreds of grimm by herself. Whole packs just… Gone.” I said, grinning. “My dad says he’s met her before. On one of his adventures. Said she’s as beautiful as she is dangerous.”

“No way, really? Your dad must be a big-deal huntsman too.”

I stopped, remembering then all the times my dad had used fake names growing up. Though I’d never known why, I knew he didn’t want people to know who he was. Part of me knew I shouldn’t say anything further about him, so I changed the subject. “So… Not a speck of dust powering the gears? Nothing?”

“Nope. Summer Rose, Curse. Curse,” he turned to the scythe as if introducing it to me, “Summer Rose.”

“Curse. That’s… man. I bet It’d be super easy to maintain out in the field.”

“Yeah, kinda a big part of the reason I didn’t try and get really fancy with the design. That and, well, my family doesn’t exactly have connections to the world’s most advanced military’s skunkworks division.”

“Where are you and your sis from?”

“Anima. Here and there. We moved around a lot as kids too. Kinda have to, being raised outside the kingdom like we were.”

“You’re from one of those nomadic tribes? Met some of them once. My Dad and I stayed with them for a few months once after he saved them from a Grimm attack. I was really young at the time… Like, four or something. That’s not an easy life. What made you two come to Beacon?”

“It’s really not. Seems like I’ve been fighting since I could stand. And, I guess you can say my clan needed a… a specialist. I mean, just about everyone can put up a fight, but they sent us to Beacon for a little extra training.”

We were approaching our destination. The doors were open, and I could see the mass of students filling the floor within the auditorium. “Well, I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you two when you get back. Aren’t you worried about them in the meantime?”

“Heh. Believe me. They can take care of themselves.” A few steps further towards the doors, and Qrow called out. “Raven! Hey, Raven. C’mere.” The girl I now knew to be Qrow’s sister had been leaning against the frame of the door, watching the students within disinterestedly. At Qrow’s call, she took a few slow steps our direction, her expression morphing from jaded to, well, slightly less jaded as she approached. “Want you to meet someone, Sis.”

“Well, if it isn’t the invisible girl.” Raven spoke slowly, almost methodically. She seemed… Ah, what would be a good word for her… Closed. Yes, closed. Disconnected. Not hostile or anything, just completely neutral.

“Hi Raven! I’m Summer Rose.” I held out my hand, which Raven took and shook firmly after an awkward moment.

“So,” Raven spoke after looking me up and down, “kinda sucks I didn’t get to actually see much of your fight. Just looked like a couple of idiots tripping over themselves trying to find the one brain cell they share. Shame the headmaster showed up when he did, it was finally starting to get good. I wish he’d let it go on. I feel like that’s the most interesting thing that’s gonna happen today.”

“Well, it is only the first day. I don’t know that first-years spar with anyone except their own class until the Vytal Festival Tournament, but I’m hoping I get a chance for a rematch with team CNDY eventually.”

“I hope so too. Fights where there’s bad blood involved are usually the best. Must be nice, being able to hide behind your semblance like that.”

Qrow grumbled, “Raven, be nice.”

“Oh relax, I meant nothing by it. It just seems like an unfair advantage.”

“It’s fine, no offense or anything. It’s not a perfect defense. You can still hear me. And Grimm don’t see in the visible spectrum, they see aural energies, like emotions. So, it doesn’t help me against them either. Just people, which, if you believe my dad, can be a much bigger threat.”

“Your dad sounds like a smart guy,” Raven observed casually.

“He is, just paranoid, I think. Like I was telling him, actually,” I tilted my head in Qrow’s direction, “We moved around a lot. Kinda like you guys, with your nomadic clan back in Anima. Dad always said that it was to keep us safe.”

“Well, like our father used to tell us, cautious people tend to live the longest.” She shot a pointed look at Qrow, and I couldn’t help but think she meant that comment for him.

Raven’s brother returned her look with a flat, recalcitrant stare. “Yeah, that’s exactly what he used to say. And look where that got him. We’re not having this conversation again, Raven.”

I was getting the sense that there was some latent hostility between the pair of them regarding the subject. “I can leave, I guess, if you two got some er—brother-sister stuff—that you need to handle. I don’t wanna intrude.”

“Nah, you can stay right here, Petals. Don’t even worry about it. Raven, later.”

“Whatever you say, baby brother.”

“We’re twins, stupid. Just b’cause I came out second doesn’t mean you get to play ‘big sis’.”

“Students.” I had been paying attention to Qrow and Raven’s little argument, so the sudden voice from the speakers within the auditorium caught me off-guard. I hadn’t even noticed Professor Ozpin calmly take the stage. He stood, surveying the crowd for a moment, before continuing. “Before I begin I would like to be the first to formally welcome you to Beacon Academy. It is within these classrooms, and upon these grounds, that the next generation of Humanity’s protectors are forged, shaped into the most capable, intelligent, and lethal warriors in the world.

“That is what the recruiting posters say, anyway. Let me re-phrase those sentiments for you, if I may. I believe, as my predecessor Professor Zoroaster did before me, that combat, trial, and hardship are the flames that forge the strongest blades. The path you have chosen will not be an easy one, as you will all find out tomorrow. Humanity can only afford the best to be its guardians in this world, to continue to ensure the continuation of the peace and security we have known since the end of the Great War.

“Thus, as I stand here looking out upon this group before me, upon all of you, I am filled with hope. Hope that I will, in four years, greet you as ‘Huntsman’ or ‘Huntress’ atop the monument you saw on your way in. That hope, however, is leavened by knowledge. The knowledge that many of you will not make it to that day. Bear that in mind, tomorrow, as well as the rest of your time here as a student at Beacon, and remember to always do your very, very best. No less will be accepted by my instructors.” With that, the headmaster turned and strode away, in no way reliant on the cane he kept with him.

As Professor Ozpin stepped away, another individual stepped forward to the mic. After the man cleared his throat for just a little longer than one would think necessary, he spoke. “Greetings, students. I am Doctor Hargrave, the Dean of Students for this academy.” The man was tall and rather big about the middle. It wasn’t that he was particularly fat, though. You could tell that at one time, the man before us had been very, very powerfully built, but age had been working against his physique for some time now. His barrel-chest heaved as he spoke, projecting his deep, rumbling voice.

Hargrave continued, “I take great pleasure in my responsibility to see you students through your four years here, and in my responsibilities as the direct line between you…” he made a point of indicating at the class of first years before him and taking another long, deep breath before resuming, “…And Professor Ozpin. I have an open-door policy, and will have all of you in my classroom, both semesters, for Combat Application Lab I and II. I expect to see each and every one of you drop by and introduce yourselves.”

“Combat Application Lab?” Qrow whispered, confused.

“Sparring.” Raven and I both answered simultaneously.

“Ah.” Qrow’s arms crossed as his eyes settled back on the burly doctor on stage.

“My professors and I make it a point to remain approachable, as we have real-world experience many of you lack and are all more than willing to share that knowledge with you. Now. None of you came here to listen to old huntsmen drone on stage about honor codes and disciplined study habits while you are enrolled here. I’ll spare you, for now. However, your scrolls have all, as of right now,” Hargrave pressed the ‘send’ button on his own device in full view of the audience before continuing, “been sent a copy of the Beacon Core Values and Academic Expectations. There will be no excuses for not being familiar with the information contained within in those documents, students.”

My scroll buzzed in my pocket as I received the message. I pulled it out, noting the sender’s name to be listed as ‘Hargrave, Symon J’.

“Now, the moment you stepped off the transports back at our landing pad, you ceased to be a rabble of civilians with minor developing martial capabilities. When your feet touched our grounds, you became students. Initiates. To call you ‘First-Years’ yet may even be a little pre-emptive, depending on the events of tomorrow. For the remainder of today, however, you are free to roam the campus, acquaint yourself with your peers, and utilize the on-campus dust dispensary and armory to ensure your weapons are up to your own standard. The cafeteria begins serving supper at five P.M., and you are all encouraged to come meet some of the upperclassmen who will help mentor you through the years ahead. You will sleep in the ballroom tonight, dormitories will be allotted upon your return from tomorrow’s mission and the assignment of teams.”

With that, Doctor Hargrave departed the stage. A general murmur arose from around the room as students made plans on how they’d spend the rest of the day. Qrow turned to me and Raven. “I’m gonna go find some trouble to get into. You two in?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Raven smiled. I had begun to wonder if she knew how.

“What kind of ‘trouble’?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

Qrow grinned mischievously. “If you’re curious, may as well tag along and find out.”

“Tempting. Really,” I replied flatly. “But, I’m actually gonna go check out the armory. Make sure everything’s working right after that fight on the way in. I’ll catch up with you two later.”

“You sure?” Qrow asked.

“Yeah. Already caught the headmaster’s attention once today. Besides, Hargrave really made a point of warning us about tomorrow. Probably a good idea for all of us to make sure we’re ready, for whatever it is they’re gonna put us through.”

“Hm. Fair enough, I guess. No way it’s gonna be anything Raven and I can’t handle, but whatever floats your boat. See you later, then.”

I waved back as I re-gripped my broken pack and headed off, realizing only then that I had absolutely no idea where the armory was.


	3. You Have Silver-Eyes

**Chapter Three: You have Silver-Eyes**

The early fall air blew a cool breeze through the archways and colonnades as I wandered my way about, searching for the armory. There were no directories of any sort on campus, and after my last encounter with upperclassmen, I was none too eager to ask one for directions. Teams of four were all around me, hanging out, talking about their summer breaks, about classes they had together this term, or simply reminiscing about the last year. Most paid me no mind at all, but every now and then a glance or two would come my way that I did my best not to return. At one point, I turned a corner and nearly bumped into two fourth years that were obviously, ah… Involved, with each other. I mean, I get it. Life for a huntsman or huntress can be short and violent, but come on. Make-out sessions on the quad? Get a room or something.

 Finally, I admitted to myself that I had become totally lost. Nothing looked familiar. A bronze statue stood nearby, at the center of a courtyard between dormitories, beneath the branches of an enormous old live oak tree. Aside from this part of the campus feeling quite a bit older than some of the other areas I’d been to, the stonework a little more weathered and the gnarled branches of the tree nearly brushing against the dorms, I didn’t think anything of it at first. Just another statue in just another courtyard. I looked around, no particular direction seeming like a better way to go than any other. Frustrated, I walked over to one of the benches built into the four-sided marble base of the statue and sat, failing to notice the calm figure who already occupied the adjacent side of the monument facing the thick trunk of the old tree.

“I take it you prefer solitude, as I do, young Miss Rose?” The man asked, and I jumped. I was startled, yes, but mostly I jumped because the even, measured tone of the voice was one I’d already heard twice today. Professor Ozpin stood and faced me, smiling kindheartedly as I composed myself.

“Oh, I’m ah, I’m actually just completely lost, Sir. Looking for the armory. Gotta go um… check my gear, y’know? I uh… I just didn’t see you there.”

The professor chuckled. “So, am I to take that to mean you would have avoided me had you known I was here?”

“Oh, no! I just ah, no.”

“Well, that is a relief.” Ozpin took a sip of cocoa from a mug he held in the opposite hand from his cane. I could smell the rich notes of dark chocolate, with maybe a hint of hazelnut on the breeze. “In point of fact, I had hoped we would get an opportunity to speak face to face, and as luck would have it, here you are. Please, have a seat, Miss Rose.”

“Uhh… Sure. I mean ah, yes sir.” I sat down next to the Headmaster nervously, utterly sure I was in some kind of trouble already.

He smiled kindheartedly, though that did little to calm my nerves as once again, his piercing gaze studied my face. “Miss Summer Rose. You have Silver-Eyes.”

I froze. Could that have been an off-handed remark? A brief look at the headmaster’s expression told me the answer. He knew. “Yes, Sir,” was all I could manage. My father had always made it clear that our lineage, our powers, were above all else to be our most closely guarded secret. I’d never met anyone who had ever recognized the only outward telltale trait, and had begun think I never would… So how did he know?

As if sensing my racing thoughts and now keenly-focused suspicion, the Professor held up his hand. “You have no enemies, here, Miss Rose. Except perhaps Miss Clarissa Sweete and the rest of team CNDY, and I can promise you that they are nowhere nearby.”

I looked quickly around for passerby, and seeing none I turned back to Professor Ozpin. Slowly, I spoke. “Sorry, Sir… It’s just that, well, I’ve never met someone who knew what I am. What these—” I indicated my eyes, “—mean.”

“It’s certainly a rarity these days. You are one of the only two I know of. Now, given that you obviously are aware of your inborn abilities, I now must ask—purely out of curiosity, of course—if you have been able to tap into them.”

“I… No. No, Sir. I’ve never been able to. My father says it will come with time, but I don’t know.”

Ozpin stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Hm. Well, from what I understand the Light your kind is born with can only manifest itself when its wielder truly needs it. You should count yourself lucky that you have not, as yet, found yourself in such a situation… But you should also know, that will not remain the case for long during your time at this academy and beyond. Your kind are inexorably drawn to the defense of the helpless. Your time will come, of that I am sure.” He chuckled warmly again before adding, “I ask merely because I wanted to know if _all_ of the Grimm in the Emerald Forest are going to die tomorrow, or only _most_ of them.”

“I guess that depends on how many there are,” I replied, a bit of nervous anticipation coming through in my voice. The prospect of facing a few grimm tomorrow wasn’t really what was bothering me, though. Nothing I hadn’t done before, anyway. It was the Headmaster. His knowing look and apparent familiarity with the nature of my abilities. After another quiet moment, I spoke. “With all due respect, uh, Sir, but how do you know so much about the Silver-Eyes? My father always said that our kind had faded beyond memory by this point.”

“The term ‘Silver-Eyed Warrior’ may have faded, yes. But your kind have been leaving their mark on this world for thousands of years, right up to the very recent past.” Ozpin stood, nodding to me to indicate that I should follow.  We rounded the base of the pedestal upon which we’d been sitting, around to the front of the memorial. “Do you know who this is?”

I looked up at the statue, studying it in detail for the first time. The man was clad in fine armor, the symbol of Vale embossed on each heavy pauldron. Flowing hair cascaded down his wide, square shoulders and back. From his helmetless head, the statue’s sightless eyes seemed to bore into mine from deep-set sockets and chiseled features no matter which way I shifted. In his right hand, he held a scepter, like something a king would use as a mark of office. His left hand reached out, holding out his crown as if offering it to whomever might take it. His scabbard was empty, and the magnificent sword to which it belonged was stabbed into the ground beside him. I knew exactly who it was. My eyes turned to the bronze placard beneath the statue’s feet, and my heart stirred a little bit as I read the titles ascribed to the famous Silver-Eyed Warrior memorialized before us.

**Adin Zoroaster**

**Fourth of his name, The Warrior King, The Last Monarch of Vale,**

**Founder and First Headmaster of Beacon Academy.**

Beneath King Zoroaster’s name and titles, a famous quote of his was etched into the stone. I remember reading it before in a book about the Great War, said to have been delivered by him just before he charged with his armies into the battle of the Reddened Sands in the Vacuo campaign.

**_“Remember this always: The true measure of a warrior is not the strength of your sword-arm, nor your skill in battle, nor what you have achieved through cunning use of either. Rather, it is the unbridled hope that fills your chest with every beat of your heart, even in these, our darkest of days. My heart beats for our world, for peace, my friends. Does yours?”_ **

Noting my recognition, Ozpin smiled. “Not many people knew my predecessor did in fact have the same gift you possess. He was the last in a long line of Silver-Eyes, his death marking the end of one of the final two remaining bloodlines of your kind. You father knew. As I recall, he was the one who actually told me.”

That last casual remark caused my eyes to snap back to Ozpin’s. “He… What? You know my father?”

Ozpin took another sip of cocoa. “You know, you and I have met before. When you were an infant. I was still a young huntsman at the time, paying a visit to two former teammates of mine—more a brother and sister to me, honestly—who had started a family and were living happily in a small village on the western coast of Sanas. Your father and mother.”

“Teammates… My parents?” I was too shocked to form any kind of real coherent sentence with the question, but the Headmaster nodded and smiled.

“We were indeed. Your father is one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen, and that’s without tapping his Light. I first learned about your kind during a particularly stressful mid-term mission, when your father experienced his powers for the first time. Everyone who saw what happened assumed it was some form of semblance. He slew every grimm that threatened our group and the small town we were defending, and promptly passed out for several days afterward. When he finally awoke, he told our team the true nature of what had happened.”

“He told me that story. I don’t remember him mentioning you, though.”

“That doesn’t necessarily surprise me.” The headmaster laughed a little. “He did all the work. The best I could do was act like I was in charge, make sure everyone was okay after the fact, and call for the evac when he didn’t wake up right away.”

“Well, you would think he would’ve said something about the fact that an old friend of his is now the headmaster of the academy I’d be going to, at least.” I realized what I had said sounded very confrontational, but Ozpin didn’t bat an eye.

“Hm. Perhaps, but it has been quite a while. I haven’t seen or spoken with your father in a little under seventeen years. The last I saw Cedric was when I came and visited him after… well, after your mother passed.”

If I had had cat ears, they would have perked straight up. “Do you know what happened to her?” I blurted the question, the answer to which I had never been told.

“Your father… Still hasn’t told you? That was… Unexpected. I do know what happened to your mother. But Miss Rose, I know your father would not have kept that information from you without a very, very good reason. I have no doubt he will tell you when the time is right.”

I folded my arms sullenly. I hadn’t actually expected that he would tell me, but that didn’t make the fact that he didn’t any less disappointing. The headmaster seemed to sense my irritation, and continued speaking, probably in an effort to change the subject. “I had been tapped to become Headmaster by that time, with Doctor Hargrave retiring to his current position as Dean of Students. I used my station to offer your father a position as a professor here at Beacon, but he refused. That was the last time I saw him. I tried to stay in contact in the months that followed those events, but my calls never went through, and every trip I made in an effort to track you two down was a dead end. After a little while it became evident that he was deliberately avoiding direct contact with me, and I resigned myself to the knowledge that I’d never see my old friend again.

“However, when an application to this academy bearing the same name Cedric and Leila had given their silver-eyed little daughter that I’d met nearly seventeen years ago crossed my desk, I felt sure that finally, there was much more than coincidence. A cooperative effort between myself and the leader of the White Fang Progressive Movement to ensure no appearance-related bias in the selection of candidates at this academy meant that there were no pictures of you in your file, thus I had no more than a quiet hope in the back of my mind that you were who I thought. It was not until today that confirmation of my feelings was delivered, when I first laid eyes on you following your disagreement with team CNDY. I saw that same glint, that spark, burning in your eyes like it was ready to ignite into silver flame. It always was most prevalent in your father’s eyes after a good fight too.” He paused, eyes carefully searching my face for a moment before quietly adding, “And you really do look exactly like Leila.”

“That’s one of the only things I ever could get my dad to tell me about her. He used to say, if I ever wanted to see my mother, just to look in the mirror. Can’t say it helps much. She’s still gone.”

“I’m sure she’s watching you, right now. And, I’m sure she’s very, very proud of the young woman you’ve become.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I wasn’t quite sure how to process the fact that a total stranger knew as much about my family as he did. He certainly knew more about my mother, and probably more about my father too. On top of that, apparently, this stranger also was intimately familiar with my family’s greatest secret. Finally, I replied. “Yeah, well, that’d actually be better coming from her, Professor.”

The headmaster sighed. “I know it would, Miss Rose. Believe me, I do. I would break the rules of time and space to bring her back, if I could. Now, I had intended to come down here for a few minutes of quiet before returning to preparations for tomorrow’s initiation mission. While I am glad it turned out to be an opportunity to speak with you, I’m afraid I am out of time. Quite ironic, considering my office is literally built inside the clock tower. So, I will leave you with this.” Professor Ozpin looked me straight in my eyes before he turned to leave. “Your father no doubt taught you to be suspicious of anyone and everyone you meet, and for good reason. I want you to know, however, that I am the furthest thing from an enemy you will ever have at this academy, and should you ever desire to talk to me, I will make time to do so.”

I nodded in response, before quietly murmuring, “Thank you, Sir.”

Ozpin began to walk away. Looking back over his shoulder with a grin and indicating an arched thoroughfare on the opposite side of the courtyard from where I’d entered it with his cane, he added, “The armory is behind the campus library, just off the commons, by the way.” With that, he disappeared around the near corner and back towards the CCT tower.

I stood there for a moment, my mind working hard in an effort to understand the peculiar stranger with whom I’d just spoken. His calm yet firm demeanor seemed to demand respect, yet his kind, emotive eyes betrayed a gentler, more sympathetic soul than his outward persona would suggest. I definitely didn’t think he was lying about what he said either. Despite my misgivings about people in general, I decided right then that I trusted the man. Now however, thanks to him, I had new questions that only one person could answer.

I pulled out my scroll, sitting back down next to the monument and pulling up my father’s number in my contacts. I hit the send button, waiting a few moments while the tower allocated a signal channel. The receiving end buzzed once, twice, and then a third time before I heard my father’s voice. “Hey honey! How’s the first day at Beacon so far?”

“Hey, Dad. It’s beautiful here, just like you said. I… uh… I already got in a fight though, so…”

“Really? Did you win?” He didn’t sound concerned at all, I noted. More excited, actually. I mean, it was more or less what I expected; he hardly ever yelled at me for stuff like that. Just called it extra practice.

“Kinda. It was versus a whole team of second-years. Buncha jerks. I think I woulda won but it got broken up.”

“That’s my girl! Beating up the older kids already, huh? I like it! Who broke it up? Was it Hargrave? The old man never could stand a bit of fun.”

“No. No, actually an old friend of yours stopped it. The Headmaster.”

My dad was silent for a moment. “Oz? So, you met him?”

“Kinda. I didn’t get to talk to him at first. He broke up the fight and left. After we got released from the welcome speech and I sorta ran into him around campus though. I thought for sure I was in trouble, but he just wanted to talk.”

“What did he say?” Another hesitant pause from my dad’s end. “How much did he tell you?”

“Well, he knows about silver eyes, firstly, which surprised me. I thought we were the only ones who knew anymore.”

“No. It’s rare to find someone who knows what we are, but that bit I already knew he’d know. I was the one who told him, after all. Even back then, I couldn’t help but think he already knew. Wise beyond his years, that one. Anything… Anything else?”

“If you mean did he tell me about mom, no. He didn’t know you hadn’t told me, and when he found that out he only said you had a good reason for never telling me about her. But he’d known her too. You three were on a team together back when you went here. And he said he knew how she died.”

My father sighed. “Yeah. We were. Team ORCL. Oz was always… special. Never had any formal training growing up, but became an unbelievably capable fighter in a very short time. Team leader right off the bat, best grades in the whole school all four years, top marks in sparring. Handed me my butt with that little cane of his more than a few times before I learned to master my Light. And he was a good friend. He was the first person I called, the first to show up after… After your mother died. I haven’t seen him since.”

“He said he looked for us. ‘Tried to track us down’ were his exact words. That’s usually something you say about someone who’s on the run.” I stopped to think how I was going to phrase the next question, before resuming. “Dad. Were we running? All that time? My entire life? And are you ever going to tell me from whom, and why?”

The other end of the line was deafeningly silent for a few long seconds. “We… Listen, sweetie. This is a conversation we need to have in person. I should’ve known sending you to Beacon would bring up some of these old questions but… I trust Oz. He’ll make sure you get better training than I have time to give you. And I know you’ll be safe there while I… While I take care of some things.”

“What kind of… Things?”

“That’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. I’ll make it out to Beacon when I come back, and we’ll have that talk. Study hard, fight harder, little petal. I love you.”

“Love you too.” The line disconnected. Great. That conversation had done nothing but leave me with even more questions. I stood, wishing I knew the answers, hoping that dad would take care of whatever it was and get here as soon as possible. That was a conversation long overdue.

I stood and began to head out, casting one final look back at the statue of King Zoroaster. He seemed to watch me go as I passed the archway in the direction of the armory. Funny, for the briefest of moments the statue’s stoic, tranquil, yet empathetic stare remined me of the headmaster. I shrugged off the passing thought as nothing more than a coincidence. The statue probably wasn’t perfectly lifelike, anyway.

* * *

Just beyond the veil, Pyrrha and I walk alongside the visage of my past self. “This must be strange for you,” Pyrrha says as she turns her head from the young me to… well, the slightly less young me.

I continue to watch myself for a moment more before facing her. “It is. I’ve looked back on my memories before, but never for long. Honestly, I think the weirdest part is seeing me at this age, knowing I’ll never look very much older than that for the rest of eternity. I guess that’s one good thing about dying young though… I’ll never look like a forty-one-year-old.”

Pyrrha gives a sort of half-laugh, half sigh, wistfully acknowledging the rather depressing truth of the statement. “There is that, I suppose. You passed at… what, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Pyrrha cast her eyes down and sighed, “I wish I could’ve lived even that long.”

“Don’t start that. The wishing. Believe me, it does absolutely no good.” I reach over and bring Pyrrha’s chin up with my finger. My eyes meet hers, and I try to smile comfortingly. “I may be stuck on this side of the veil, but spending my time in the present with those I left behind means that my experiences, though not quite the same as if I had actually been there, are similar to what they would have been had I survived my encounter with Salem. I still got to watch my daughter grow up. I still got to watch Qrow teach her how to wield Crescent Rose. I saw her get put on a team at Beacon, watched her grow as a leader and warrior. Wishing I could change the past takes my focus away from the present. And I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Pyrrha nodded, seemingly accepting my advice, but the depressed look on her face did not lift. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.

“For what?”

“I’m the reason you’re missing out on the present right now.”

“No! That’s not what I meant! Don’t you dare apologize.” I stop walking, unable to hold back the mother instinct any longer, and throw my arms around Pyrrha, hugging her tightly as teenage me continued on down the pathway. The scene faded, my mind leaving the memory to focus entirely on the understandably broken young girl with whom I had so much in common. “What did I tell you? I swore to Ruby that I’d make your passing as easy as possible. It’s only been hours since you sacrificed yourself. You know what I was doing hours after I ended up here? Helplessly watching Qrow try to drink himself to death because he blamed himself for what happened to me. Watching Tai’s heart break as he told Yang and Ruby that mommy wasn’t coming home. That’s not going to be you, do you understand? If we have to watch all four years of my time at Beacon and every minute of the six years following that before you’re ready to revisit the present, if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. Because a promise is a promise.”

Pyrrha shivered and sniffled, trying to hold back tears as she hugged me back. “I hope… I hope it won’t take that long.”

“You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, Pyrrha. I know it won’t.”

“Thank you, Summer,” Pyrrha said after a while, finally smiling as she broke the embrace.

“Now. Let’s go catch up to me.” I can’t help but grin at the paradoxical nature of that statement before concentrating once again on my memory to bring it back into focus. The image of my past-self reconstituted and Pyrrha and I fall back into stride by my side. My thoughts from that day begin to echo again in my mind here in the beyond, as if I were thinking them for the first time. The conversation with Ozpin minutes before was really getting to me, causing a mental maelstrom of questions and possible answers that varied wildly from reasonable to ridiculous and everywhere in between, bouncing around in my head with no signs of desisting.

“It sounds like you were pretty conflicted,” Pyrrha said after a moment. “A lot must’ve been kept from you as a child, about your mother and all.”

“Hmph. Yeah, a lot _was_ kept— _wait_.” My eyes once again snapped to meet Pyrrha’s. “You can hear my thoughts from then too?”

“I… I can,” Pyrrha said slowly. “I’m, ah… I’m sorry. I assumed you knew that would happen.”

“No… Well, I actually had no idea it would. I mean, I’ve never really had a companion here. You’re the first person I’ve seen pass that I felt compelled to stay beside through the transition. As it is, I rarely go back to re-live my past anyway. Like I said, most of my time is spent watching the present here. So, no, I had no idea.”

“Oh. Well, I guess… I suppose I can understand if it’s too personal for you, now.”

“What? I… well, you know, I actually don’t really mind all that much, I suppose. Although, now that I do, I’m gonna go ahead and reserve the right to ‘selectively remember’ through some parts of my memories that might get a little ah… personal. I’m sure you understand.” I grinned at the idea of that small caveat, like some kind of end-user license agreement for re-living my own memories.

Pyrrha returned the grin and even managed a slight chuckle before replying. “Totally understandable, Summer.”

“Good.” I smiled. “But yeah, I think ‘conflicted’ might not be a strong enough word.”

“Do you know why your father held so much back from you?”

“I do. In all honesty, I think I did then, too. Every time I’d asked him about it, I’d see the pain it caused him to remember, and invariably he’d tell me: ‘wait until you’re older, little petal’. It just felt… off-limits, I suppose. But,” I sighed, “we’ll get to the actual conversation with him that explains... the whole story. Eventually.”

Pyrrha shrugged. “Fair enough,” she said as her focus settled back on the memory the veil continued to show us. “The armory is just ahead.”

“Yeah, I actually felt really stupid when I finally found it.”

“You passed it a few different times while you were getting lost.”

“Mmmhm. Of course, in my defense, I was expecting there to at least be a sign on the door or… something.” First-year me pushed through the double doors behind the library, exactly where Oz had said they’d be, and we followed me down a short flight of stairs into an expansive, high-ceilinged, semi-subterranean room. Pyrrha and I shared a look as my turbulent mental state quieted near-instantaneously. “You’re going to see me in here a lot as we keep walking though these memories,” I said offhandedly to Pyrrha as we reached the bottom of the stairwell. I watched myself toss my bag with its broken shoulder-strap to the nearest workbench of many that lined either wall of the room, and turn to take in what could only be described as a weapon-geek’s wonderland. I’d never seen so many tools in my life.

Pyrrha smiles as teenage me set to work repairing the strap to my bag, the tumult gone from my mind and replaced by a steady, almost rhythmically-focused string of analytical thoughts about what I had set my hands to task completing. “It sounds like working with your hands like this is almost… therapeutic for you, I guess.”

“Yeah, actually. I never really had a chance to make long-term friends before I came to Beacon, moving around like we did. Pretty hard to develop into anything but an introvert in circumstances like that. Sometimes, I just needed to get away from people and recharge, and this was where I’d come to do that. Of course, with time, I began to shake that off. I still kept my vices, same as everyone else on my team. I loved tinkering, building, modifying, all of that, Qrow and Raven loved to break the rules, and Tai was a fighter and an adrenaline junkie.

“Before long though, all I needed was a good work out or sparring session, or to just spend some time with my team, relax, hang out, that sort of thing. Not unlike Ruby. She and I were a lot alike during this stage of our lives. But she and her team grew to a point where they began to draw strength from one another, and from you all in JNPR too. According to Oz, that strength is the whole reason Beacon and the other academies use the team system, and is the basis that forms all the very best teams to ever graduate.”

“That was my favorite part about my time at Beacon,” Pyrrha said, a note of sadness in her voice at the mention of what Salem’s evil had robbed her of. “The camaraderie, the support… I’m really looking forward to seeing STRQ develop that way. Qrow was certainly very different back then, wasn’t he? And Raven… The second I saw her I thought I was looking at a black-haired version of Yang.”

“Yeah.” I sighed reflectively. “It was great, while it lasted.” Though I didn’t say it aloud, already knowing how my story would end certainly took quite a lot of the fun out of remembering. But I wasn’t doing this for me. I swallowed the pain and smiled. “Speaking of Raven and Qrow, I’m gonna skip most of my afternoon here in the armory. Unless you want to watch me calibrate the output capacitor on Scourge’s plasmoid chamber and remove the resulting over-voltage plasma scoring from each of the catalyzer contacts on the braid…”

“No, I, uh… I think that’s just fine. We can skip that.” Pyrrha and I shared a laugh and I closed my eyes, remembering forward to a few minutes before the moment I realized two of my future teammates were a pair of regular troublemakers.

 


	4. Negative Friends

**Chapter Four: Negative Friends**

I’d been in the armory for hours, laboring carefully and diligently in an effort to restore Scourge to fighting form. I’d had to re-finish each individual bladed segment of the whip, abrading away the tough layer of plasma scoring that marred the emitter contacts with a tiny carbide-tipped detail grinder. I’d had time to recalibrate the complex internal electronics in the chassis to correct the root of the overvoltage problem, used the holodesk to design and fabricate a modification to shield the sensitive componentry and make it a bit more durable in the event Scourge ever took another hit like it had earlier, and I’d even managed to fix my bag. And in all that time, the questions and possibilities that had threatened to overwhelm my mind after my conversation with the headmaster could not have seemed further away.

I hooked my boots under a support bar beneath the workbench and leaned back on the barstool-like seat that was bolted into the ground, inspecting Scourge before letting out a satisfied sigh and returning my weapon to its magplate. I stretched my arms out and let my head fall back so that I could see the now upside-down clock hanging from the far wall. It was a few minutes after 2 p.m., and I hadn’t eaten since before I boarded the transport. I suppose my ability to curb any and all concerns with a few hours at a workbench had a negative side effect too… I was starving.

As if to add an exclamation point to this realization, my stomach let out a long, burbling growl that galvanized me to stand and sling my recently-repaired messenger bag over my shoulder before heading back up and out onto the commons. I actually remembered where the cafeteria was, having passed the long, tall building in my search for the armory earlier. Setting off in that direction, I almost didn’t notice when the Branwen twins appeared from the shadows behind the Library and moved to fall into step beside me.

“Hey, Petals! Wait up!” Qrow said as he and his sister approached.

I slowed, allowing the pair of them to close the gap, and turned to walk backwards as they trotted up. “What’s up, Ice-Cube?”

“Nice,” Raven grinned at the counter-nickname jab at her brother and nodded amicably.

“Hey Raven,” I smiled back. She certainly seemed a little less… defensive, I guess, than she had earlier. I wonder if that was because she and her brother had found the trouble they were aiming to get into last I’d seen them. “What’ve you guys been doing all morning?”

The two of them shared a look before Qrow turned back with a shrug. “Meh. Not much. Exploring the campus. Kinda started to get boring, so we decided to come find you.”

“Hm. Well, can’t say I’m gonna be that entertaining, either. ‘Bout to go get some food. You guys eat yet?”

“Nah, we haven’t,” Qrow replied. “I guess I could eat. Raven?”

“Sure,” Raven said simply. Friendlier than before? Yes. More talkative? Apparently not.

“Kinda had something we wanted to ask you about, too. Might as well do it over some of this big-city food we’ve heard so much about,” Qrow added to his sister’s short reply.

Ask me? I perked up inquisitively. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“We’ll get there. Not really ‘open-air conversation’ material, if you know what I mean,” Qrow said cryptically as he nodded his head towards a pair of professors standing nearby.

“I’m pretty sure you couldn’t have made that sound any _more_ suspicious than you did, even if you tried,” Raven chided her brother as the three of us continued on out of earshot of the two older huntsmen.

“I’m with her on that one,” I added flatly. “I already have a bad feeling about… Well, whatever it is.”

“Oh relax. It’s a pretty good plan if I do say so mysel— _UHHFFF!”_

“I’m gonna stop you right there, little bro,” Raven scolded after striking her brother hard in the gut with the pronounced elbow-bolsters on her segmented bracers. “It was _our_ plan.”

Qrow straightened and continued after Raven and me, wincing as he did so from the pain of his contused abs and scowling at his sister. “Ugghh… _Fine._ Whatever. It was our plan. But,” he added, looking back at me, “you’re a big part of it.”.

“Okay, now I’ve really got a bad feeling about your little ‘plan’.”

Qrow waved dismissively. “You worry too much, Petals.”

“You should try it sometime. Might save you from ending up stuck in ice and leaving me to do all the fighting next time.” I fired back. “And quit calling me ‘Petals’.”

“Oh, come on. What about trip-hazard?”

“Un-original. Try again.”

“Flower-child?”

“No.”

“Short-stack?”

“Do you have a death wish? Initiation’s tomorrow. I could totally make it look like you got eaten by a grimm.”

“You’re no fun.”

“No, you’re just bad at coming up with nicknames.”

Rolling his eyes, Qrow conceded. “Fine. Guess we’re sticking with Summer.”

“Thank you,” I nodded. We had almost reached the cafeteria by now. The smells of the day’s extensive menu wafted from the kitchen chimneys at the back of the long, rectangular building, filling our nostrils with more amazing scents than we could reasonably distinguish from one another. I looked over, and I could’ve sworn Qrow’s eyes were watering. I couldn’t say I blamed him, either. Nomadic tribes, like the one in which Qrow had said that he and Raven had been raised in and the one with which my father and I had stayed when I was little, hunted and gathered for almost all of their food. Variety beyond what the wilds could provide was rare, unless the clan stopped their migration to trade with other villages they passed. No matter what spices or herbs you had on-hand to season your meals with, everything always tasted like lean game.

We pushed through the double doors, into the massive open interior of the cafeteria. The room was filled with natural light that streamed in from incredibly tall, narrow windows that nearly reached all the way from the stone floor up to the vaulted ceiling. The peak lunch rush had died down, but the voices and laughter of students from every grade still grouped at different tables saturated the air with the constant ambient hum of conversation. A first-year girl standing nearby caught my eye. Well, her weapon did, slung in a massive half-sheath across her back. It must’ve been the biggest great sword I’d ever seen, with an intriguing hollow space above the quillion block and a groove running down the spine of the blade that indicated its ability to separate down its own long axis.

Qrow jarred my attention away from the girl after a moment, reaching back and tapping me on the shoulder excitedly whilst staring with rapt attention at the holomenu at the front of the line. “What?” I asked, my moderate irritation at his insistent interruption quickly becoming amusement as I watched him clumsily explore the floating images of the available meals. The menu had everything, from delicious-looking sushi to burgers, from pulled pork barbeque to quesadillas, even that morning’s fresh-caught seafood delivered from the downtown market. Even I found myself surprised by the available variety, but Qrow appeared utterly dumfounded.

“I’ve never even heard of half of this stuff,” Qrow admitted after a moment more of confusedly scrolling through several pages of options.

I laughed. “Just pick something. You can’t not like it if you’ve never tried it, right?”

Qrow shrugged. “Fair enough.” He put one hand over his eyes and blindly picked an option with the other. The console flashed to the payment screen, and Qrow balked at the price. “Thirteen lien? I don’t think I’ve even got a ten-card in my wallet!”

“Tap your scroll on the terminal. You’ve got a student account. All our meals are paid for, the option to pay is just for guests.”

“What, really?” Qrow confusedly retrieved his scroll and touched it to the payment pad where one would usually scan a lien. The screen blinked once, and a flashing green check mark next to Qrow’s student ID number and name appeared on the holoscreen. “Whaaaa…” Qrow said, his confusion and skepticism gone. In its place, wonderment reminiscent of a kid in a candy store flushed across his features as a tray laden with his meal was delivered via a conveyor system from the kitchens behind the rear wall of the room.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Raven chided. “You act like you’ve never even seen food before.”

“Have you ever seen anything like this? I don’t even know what it is, but it looks amazing.”

“That,” I laughed, “is a pizza.” The personal pie looked quite good actually, flash-cooked to perfection in seconds and delivered steaming hot, but I’d had my eye on that sushi roll since I’d first spied it on the menu. Raven scrolled disinterestedly through the options after me before settling for a simple house salad, and the three of us exited the line to take a seat in the main dining area. I was about to go sit near the girl I’d seen earlier, who was alone at the end table of the nearest row and who I secretly wanted to interrogate about the mechanics of her weapon, but Qrow and Raven nudged me over to an empty, secluded corner and sat down opposite me.

Qrow tucked noisily and ravenously into the journey of self-discovery that was his pizza, Raven picked a few bites from her salad, and I readied my chopsticks. None of us said a word and I was starving, so I wasted no time in tucking into my “Huntsman’s roll”. Between bites, however, I became acutely aware that Raven was observing me. It was casual, low-key, even. But just about every time I looked her way our eyes met, and she would always hold that contact for a bit longer than one would think entirely necessary. It was seriously almost like she was trying to learn everything there was to know about me without actually asking.

Finally, I decided to break the awkward silence and cycle of uncomfortable eye contact with Raven. “So, what is it that you two so desperately need my help with, huh?”

Qrow was already on the last quarter-slice of his pizza. Between bites, he asked, “What do you know about initiation tomorrow?”

“Not much, really. My dad went here, and told me once that that is one thing they try to keep a secret as much as possible until the day of. Keeps us guessing, I guess. No one knows what the actual mission will be, where it’ll be, anything, until it happens.”

“And you’re cool with that?” Qrow asked.

I thought for a moment, wondering where he was going with this line of conversation. “Yeah, I guess so. Something my dad taught me was that a true huntsman is ready for every situation.”

“You seem to rely on your Dad’s advice quite a bit,” Raven pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I never knew my mom.”

Raven shrugged ever so slightly. “Hmph. Fair enough. I only point it out because I wonder how willing you are to think for yourself.”

The passive aggression was clear in the comment, but I let it go. “What kind of thinking for myself are we talking about, here?”

“We’re talking about helping us out on a little… venture.” Qrow had by this point already completely wolfed down his pizza, and was now fully invested in the conversation. “The kind that might make you have to do something your dad might not encourage.”

“I knew I had a bad feeling about this.”

“What did I say…” Raven said in an I-told-you-so sort of way to her brother.

“Hey, she hasn’t said no yet, sis,” Qrow interrupted.

“I still don’t know what it is you two want me to say yes to!” I interjected, beginning to get frustrated at their apparent insistence in remaining utterly cryptic.

“You saw Hargrave at the welcome speech? He had a scroll tablet.”

“Yeah I saw it. And it’s relevant… how?”

“He’s the Dean of Students. There’s no way that tablet doesn’t have some kind of rundown on initiation tomorrow. Objectives, maps, grimm concentrations, all of that.”

The realization of my role in this ‘plan’ dawned on me a moment before Qrow finished his last sentence. “You want me to steal Professor Hargrave’s tablet? A former headmaster of Beacon? An experienced huntsman with the power to expel us with a stroke of a stylus?”

“Pretty much,” Raven nodded.

I looked at Qrow, who smiled like what he’d just said wasn’t the stupidest idea ever put into words. “You’re both nuts,” I said simply.

“There it is. Satisfied?” Raven gloated to her brother.

“She. Still. Didn’t. Say. No,” Qrow emphatically stressed every word, but I raised my finger to stop him.

“Yeah, sorry. That’s definitely a no. Did you really think you’d get away with something like that?”

“We’ve gotten away with plenty already,” Qrow proudly huffed. “Besides, it’s not like we’d keep it. It’d disappear just long enough for us to copy the right files, and then ‘poof’, right back where he left it. You saw how old he is. He’d never even notice.”

“What do you mean, ‘plenty already’?”

“That,” Raven interjected before her brother could respond, “Isn’t important.”

“What is important is that we need you, Summer,” Qrow insisted. “This could give us a leg up on initiation, tomorrow. We’d look like the best first year students to ever hit this school!”

“But we wouldn’t really _be_ the best, don’t you get that? If we cheat our way to an easy initiation, we’re not really any better than anyone else. Something my dad taught me—”

“Here we go,” Raven interrupted exasperatedly, rolling her eyes and sighing as she spoke.

“What? Oh, excuse me,” I said, returning Raven’s recalcitrance with sarcasm of my own. “I’m sorry my dad is one of the best huntsmen to ever live! I’m sorry that I choose to listen to the lessons he taught me about being a huntress, because I actually want to be just like him someday!”

“Well. Aren’t we just daddy’s little angel, huh?” Raven’s eyes snapped to mine, blazing in the first real emotion I’d seen her show yet… anger. “You know what lessons our father taught us? Rules are for suckers. In the wilds, you do what you can to survive, or you die. You don’t stick your neck out for others, you don’t hold to any kind of honor code when the blades and bullets start flying, and you take every advantage you can, fair or not. And he didn’t teach us that with his life, his perfect _example_ ,” Raven spat. “He taught us that when he _died._ ”

“Look, I’m sorry that happened to you, but then why are you trying to become a huntress!? That’s all pretty much in the job description!”

“That’s probably the most naïve thing I’ve ever heard,” Raven scoffed. “Out there, huntsmen aren’t any better than anyone else, they just act like they are. Most are no more than mercenaries. When it comes down to it, I bet your daddy isn’t any different.”

“That’s not true. You don’t know my dad. You don’t know me.”

“But I do know people. Pretty easy to tell with some, who’s gonna cut and run when the real fighting begins, who’s gonna look after number one. Not that I’d blame anyone for living to fight another day, because in the end that’s always, always gonna be a better option than dying for a bunch of strangers who never learned to fend for themselves. The dangerous ones are the ones who convince themselves that they’re somehow better than everyone else. Get everyone else believing it, too. And when the fighting starts they’ll leave the people who came to trust them for their words to die and save their own skin every time. Every. _Single._ Time.”

“That’s not me. That’s not what it means to be a Rose. We’re…”

“Better?” Raven venomously finished my sentence.

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“You didn’t have to.” Raven stood, her contemptuous scowl making it clear she was done with our discussion. “You’re just another arrogant, self-righteous little coward in the making. Come on, Qrow. I told you we didn’t need _Miss Rose._ ”

“Raven, waitaminute,” Qrow pleaded.

“Just go, Qrow,” I growled. It was Raven I was really mad at, but her last words to Qrow made it pretty clear that her brother was the one who’d pushed to have me included in the twin’s scheme in the first place. The boy looked at me for a moment, a sort of regret and sad disappointment clear in his eyes, before standing.

“Fine. I guess we’ll see you around, Summer.”

“Take care of yourselves, tomorrow,” I wished them bitterly. “Seems that’s what you two are good at.”

“Damn right it is,” I heard Raven mumble as she stalked away with Qrow right behind.

I watched them leave, seething angrily at them, at myself, everything, really. This morning, I thought I’d made two friends, but it seemed now my misgivings about people were being proven right, and here I was right back at square one. I picked at the last few bites of my sushi which, though delicious, I no longer had an appetite for, and stood to leave. A few students still lingered in the cafeteria, but not many. The girl who’d caught my eye earlier was seated alone at the corner table, but at the moment I was not particularly enthused by the idea of human interaction. Directionless and admittedly rather down on myself, I sauntered out towards the commons, doing my best to give off the impression that I knew exactly where I wanted to go, regardless of the truth.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sulking in the armory, the only place on campus that felt familiar and welcoming. Tools and weapons don’t have motives or hidden agendas. They’re easy to understand. They have a purpose, a reason to exist. As I sat there fiddling with a couple bits of scrap metal, however, I couldn’t help but wonder for the first time in my life if being a huntress was really as straightforward a life as I’d always believed.

A huntress is also a tool, in a way, right? I’d have a purpose. My whole reason for existing would be to save lives. I put myself between the helpless and all the threats in this world and either win, or die trying. What Raven had said, about huntsmen and huntresses being no better than mercenaries… I mean, it’s a job. We get paid. That’s never what it’s been about, right? That’s not why I’ve seen my dad risk his live over and over again. Half the time, the people he fought for barely had anything to pay us with. No. Raven could think what she wants. She can have whatever motivations suit her. I knew why I existed. All I had to do was look at my eyes in a mirror to know my responsibility to this world.

I emerged from the armory just as the undersides of the highest wisps of cloud ignited to a brilliant orange, the beginning of what promised to be a spectacular sunset. I was still full from my late lunch, so rather than head to dinner and risk rubbing elbows with the Branwen twins again, I opted instead to head out to the grand courtyard and watch the daylight of my first day at Beacon die. Five minutes later, I had found the perfect spot in the roots of an old forever fall maple beside a lily-strewn reflecting pool and sat. I slipped my headphones on and donned my hood, content to lean against that tree and watch the clouds burn as the horizon devoured the sun.

Motion in my peripheral vision minutes later interrupted my brooding, however. Though my head remained still, my eyes snapped to the figure. I was relieved firstly to determine that it wasn’t Raven or Qrow. The next thing I noticed, however, was the weapon of the girl who seemed to be combing the main thoroughfare meticulously, eyes glued to the pavers. It was the massive great sword I’d noticed in the cafeteria, the one with the split along the spine that I was sure was for some kind of dust-charge conduction. The girl it was attached to, or more accurately, was attached to it, was the same one I’d noticed earlier as well. Short, slight frame, and kind eyes that met mine when I didn’t look away fast enough. She turned towards me hesitantly.

So much for solitude. I watched her approach, trying without much success to pretend I didn’t notice, and slipped one earpiece of my headphones off when she got a little closer. “Can… I help you?” I prompted after another brief moment of eye contact.

“Hey… Hav—uh, you haven’t seen a locket around here, have you? I think it fell out of my bag, but I’ve spent all afternoon retracing my steps and haven’t found it.”

“I haven’t, no. Sorry.” I was about to leave it at that, but the girl’s disappointed and helpless look prompted me to remove my other earpiece and lower my hood. “Did you check with Campus Security?”

“Yeah, I did. Nothing.”

“Maybe someone else picked it up. What’s it look like?”

“Silver nevermore skull on a silver chain. Ruby eyes. The beak opens up, projects a holo of me and my mom. She got it for me just before I jumped on the transport this morning, kind of an early birthday present.”

Before my negativity could stop me, I heard myself saying, “Don’t worry. We’ll find it.” It was the right thing to do, and I knew it, but most of me really just wanted to go back to minding my own business. The girl thanked me and she and I commenced looking around in the grass and along the pathway leading up to the landing pad. As we did, I felt my angst melting away.

A few more minutes of unfruitful searching passed before the girl finally spoke again. “Aren’t you the girl that fought those second-years earlier?”

“Ahh… Yeahhh. That was me,” I replied, realizing then that my conflict with CNDY would be the first impression most of my peers among the first years would have of me. Good thing I didn’t get my butt kicked. “Still kinda surprised I didn’t get into trouble for that.”

“I was too, especially when the headmaster showed up. But I told my brother about it and he actually didn’t seem all that surprised. Said that that kind of thing will happen, every now and then. He’s a fourth year. Leader of team HNTR.”

“That sounds familiar… Didn’t someone from HNTR win the Vytal Tournament the year before last?”

“Yep!” The girl exclaimed proudly. “My big bro. Now it’s my turn. Do the Rainart name proud, y’know? Speaking of names, what’s yours?”

“Oh. I, uh, I never asked you yours either. I kinda feel really rude now. Summer Rose. You?”

“Heh. Don’t worry about it. I’m Gretchen. Rainart. Wait, I already said that part… Whatever.”

I giggled a little. She seemed nice enough, I suppose. Of course, I’d thought that about Qrow, and just look how that’d turned out. “Well, it’s getting dark.” The sun had dipped down below the high cliffs by now, casting the courtyard into shadow as lampposts and ground lighting began to tick on around every path and pool. “I don’t think we’re gonna find it tonight. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I’m the one who lost it. Maybe someone will turn it in tomorrow.”

“Yeah, maybe.” The two of us headed off, stopping by the locker rooms adjacent the sparring classroom to lock up our weapons for the night before heading to the ballroom. Gretchen and I pushed open the doors to find the area already starting to fill up. We selected a free corner and began to set up our sleeping bags, but as we did I noticed two familiar figures talking quietly to themselves, just a little bit too nearby for my liking. “Hang on a minute, Gretchen.”

“What?”

“Let’s find a different corner. Kinda crowded over here.”

“What do you mean? There’s no one here.”

I nodded in the twins’ direction. “Rather not be too nearby those two right now. Had a bit of an argument earlier, not really in the mood to be anywhere near them.”

“Isn’t that the kid who got stuck in the gum?”

“Yep. Thought he was a nice guy. Guess I’m a terrible judge of character, though.”

“And the girl?”

“His twin sister.”

“Hm. She came up to me this morning, asking for directions. It was weird though, like she asked how to get to the library, and after I told her she headed off in pretty much exactly the opposite direction.”

I nodded. “Sounds about right.”

The two of us picked up our things and moved over to a more crowded area that, though we had to step awkwardly over and around some people, was sufficiently far from the Branwens. “What was the argument about? Gretchen asked as we set up very closely adjacent one another.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah. Well, the short version is that they wanted me to help them steal Hargrave’s tablet to get a sneak peek at what to expect during initiation tomorrow.”

“And you turned them down?”

“Course I did. I’m not a thief. Raven got all mad cause I showed some basic morality or… something. And I’m pissed at Qrow mainly because I know it was him who suggested the idea in the first place.”

“They’re both named after birds?”

I snickered. “Yeah. Qrow is spelled weird though. Saw it on his student ID when we went to get lunch, got a ‘Q’ instead of a ‘C’.”

“That is weird. Hm. Bet anything they’re gonna try and figure out some way to break the rules whether you helped them or not. Hazel said it happens every year, kids trying to beat the system or whatever. They never can. The instructors are tight lipped and it’s an unspoken rule among upperclassmen not to talk to first-years about initiation. They don’t ever even do it in the same place every year. Sometimes it’s Forever Fall, sometimes it’ll be down to the south east closer to Mountain Glen, and sometimes it’s in—”

“The Emerald Forest. That’s where Professor Ozpin told me it’d be.”

“He… What? The Headmaster… _Told you_?”

“Yeah. I mean, not everything. Just that.”

“Well, that’s more than I’ve heard. When did you talk to Professor Ozpin?”

“While I was… aha uh, lost. Looking for the armory. Kinda just ran into him.”

“Wow. Well, that’s not much to go on, but it’s something,” Gretchen shrugged. “We’ll see. If the Headmaster wasn’t trying mislead you, then I bet most of the challenge will center around the ancient city out to the east of here.”

“Ancient city?”

“Yeah. You’ve seen ruins before, right? There’s a ton of them around Vale. We took field trips to them when I was going to Pharos Academy in downtown Vale.”

“Yeah. I think my class from Signal went with you guys. I skipped that trip though. I mean, I’ve seen ruins before. I… Well I was always taught to stay away from them, though.”

“Wait, really? Why?”

I remembered back to sitting around the fire with my Aunt Kyrin and the other village elders when I was very young, listening to the deep and serious yet kind voice of the village chief as he, my father, and the other warriors recounted adventures they’d had. “Well… This is gonna sound weird. My dad and I lived with a nomadic tribe when I was really little. Places like that were forbidden to them. They avoided them during times of travel, they never set up camp anywhere near them. The grimm are attracted to them, which already makes them dangerous, but it’s more than that.”

“What do you mean?” Gretchen asked.

“It’s hard to explain. So, to this clan, aura is sacred. It’s not just a tool, like it is for us. If I remember right, I think they believe it’s a blessing from their main deity. I guess because of that, only the Chief is trained to use it. He’s like the protector, their god’s instrument or something. But the way he meditates, or… I don’t know. They develop it very differently than they teach us at combat schools. Some closely-guarded tribal secret. It made the Chief’s aura strong— a lot stronger than my father’s, even—and somehow, whatever they do allows them to speak to the dead. Or… Hear them. Feel them? I don’t know. Red Wolf wasn’t really all that clear with the way he explained it, or maybe I was too young to really get it at the time.”

Gretchen’s brow furrowed. “What? Speaking to the dead? Come on. That’s… You don’t actually believe them, do you?”

“Hm. My dad asked a question like that once. I still remember the story Chief Red Wolf answered him with. When he was younger, I think he said 15 years old, part of his ‘coming of age’ ritual was to be left in one of these old cities for one moon cycle. Part of a Chief’s duty, to gain a respect for what the gods can do to a people that fail to honor them. His father, the previous Chief, left him on the outskirts of what might’ve once been a great city to fend for himself. Red Wolf said that every moment he spent there, this sense of dread in the pit of his stomach grew and grew, until it almost drove him mad. He said those ruins felt… Dark. That he could feel _death_ all around those stones, like they were literally soaked with pain and fear. After a while he said he swore he could almost hear their screams in his sleep. It was in those moments that he came to realize: Whatever happened to those people… Wherever they went, it was something awful. Unnatural. That’s why, to that clan, those places are cursed. As is everyone who disturbs them.”

Gretchen studied me for a moment, as if trying to decide if I really believed what I was saying. In all honesty, I wasn’t even sure myself. It sounded nuts. Superstitious nonsense and nothing else. But I could remember the look in Red Wolf’s eyes when he’d spoken about the ruins to us. There was a very real pain there, as if he felt true despair at the recollection of… Well, whatever he’d experienced. There was no way that there wasn’t _some_ truth to it all. “Go ahead,” I said, just as the pensive moment the two of us had began to feel a bit too drawn out.

“Go ahead what?”

“Call me crazy.”

“I wouldn’t do that…” Gretchen said, speaking slowly, still clearly unsure of what to make of what I’d said. “I don’t know. This old Chief or whatever… Maybe he did get some weird vibe from whatever ruins he visited. I can’t really say one way or the other. Now do I believe any of that about curses and talking to the dead and whatnot? Ehh. I’ll get back to you on that. But I don’t think you’re crazy for believing him. Not one bit.”

“Ah, well,” I replied. “That’s a relief I suppose.”

“Still, cursed or not, sometimes Huntsmen and Huntresses have to go to places like that. My dad’s escorted more than a few archaeologists to the ruins I think we’ll be headed to tomorrow. Nothing ever struck any of them dead.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’d have to get over that old superstition eventually. It’s just hard to shake something like that if you’ve grown up believing it, y’know?”

“Yeah. Well, on he bright side, I might be completely wrong about the challenge.”

“But… Your brother’s a fourth year. He didn’t tell you for sure what your mission would be if you ended up in the Emerald Forest?”

“Oh no. He wouldn’t say a word about the challenge itself. It’s just, well like I said, there’s a huge old city out there. It would make sense for us to end up there, but no, it’s just another guess, really.”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” I sighed as I lay back. “Good night.”

“‘Night.”

“My head hit the pillow and I realized then just how exhausted I was. It’d been a long day, the first of many. As I began to drift off I quietly hoped I’d end up on a team with Gretchen, and not Qrow or Raven.


	5. Initiation

**Chapter 5: Initiation (Part I)**

Sunlight was streaming into the ballroom when my eyes first opened the next morning. I was confused for a moment as I sat up, wondering why I wasn’t in my room on Patch. I didn’t hear my father bustling about in the kitchen, and the smell of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon wasn’t filling the air on this Saturday morning like it had almost every Saturday, no matter where we’d lived. I looked around as I recalled the answer, taking in the shapes of students all around me, some awake, some still dead to the world, and some shifting and groaning in attempts to keep the morning’s first light out of their bleary eyes and steal a few more precious minutes of sleep before it would be time to begin preparing for the day’s initiation challenge.

Gretchen was among the number who were wide awake already, and smiled at me as she rolled up her sleeping bag and stuffed it into her backpack. “Morning,” she said cheerfully as I rubbed the grogginess out of my eyes.

“Hey,” I smiled back as I pulled myself out of my cozy cocoon and my bare feet touched the cold hardwood floor. I winced at the shock of it and pulled them back before slowly easing them down again for a second try. Note to self: Buy slippers.

“Sleep alright?” Gretchen asked.

“Mmm. Mmmhhm.” I mumbled in response as I stretched, feeling my spine and neck decompress from a night on the hard floor of the ballroom. “You?” I asked as my companion stood.

“Yeah, not bad. Not exactly a feather bed,” she grinned as she softly planted her foot to emphasize the hardness of the floor, “But hopefully this is the last night we’ll have to deal with this.”

“Doubt it,” I said, remembering all times my dad and I had spent out in the wilds with tribes and tiny, off-the-grid villages that barely had running water, let alone feather beds.

Gretchen chuckled. “Hey, this city-girl can hope.”

I packed up my possessions and slung my bag. “I hate fighting grimm on an empty stomach. Let’s go eat.”

“Before or after we get dressed?”

I rolled my eyes and played along. “Before, obviously. Gretchen. We’re gonna walk right up in there in our PJ’s and sit down with our food next to the biggest, meanest-looking team of fourth-years we can find, and lay it out. Let ‘em know who’s really in charge around here.”

We both laughed at the idea, and Gretchen shrugged. “That’d be HNTR. Nyri would probably humor us, and Hazel wouldn’t be that surprised. Titus and Rowan… Jury’s still out. Only met them once.”

Gretchen and I moved off towards the entryway of the ballroom, careful not to step on anyone who lay in our path. As I pushed open the heavy oak door and held it for her, my final glance around the room halted and my gaze narrowed as I locked eyes with Qrow, who knelt beside his smirking sister on the opposite end of the dance floor. His return stare remained neutral for the brief second of eye contact we shared before I spun around and let the door close behind me. Had I held the look for a moment longer, or if I’d looked back, perhaps I would’ve seen when he cast his eyes ruefully downward.

The rest of the morning seemed to drag by as the anticipation for the upcoming challenge mounted. I was disappointed not to find chocolate chip pancakes as a menu item in the cafeteria, but the waffles with whipped cream and strawberries was certainly a reasonable substitute. Still, Gretchen and I joked about making the menu request to my ‘buddy’, the Headmaster. The two of us took our time eating, went to retrieve our weapons and stow our bags, and even dropped by the dust dispensary to top off our ammo and propellant without so much as a notification about when or where to report. Two of the dust reservoirs on Scourge were still full, and the burn dust cylinder that had seen use yesterday only needed a few more grams. Every little bit helps, though, so I filled it to capacity and snapped the reservoir back into its place within my grip.

I turned in time to see Gretchen slip a few black, uncut gravity dust crystals into a pouch on her hip.

“Gravity? Interesting choice.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I can insert them into the sword here,” she replied, indicating some kind of clamp or mount that I hadn’t noticed before, built into the hollow space centered in the quillion block of her weapon. “Pulls grimm towards the blade, so I can use it to get just a bit more power out of every swing.”

“I’m surprised you can swing it at all. Must be a lot lighter than it looks.”

Gretchen smiled, and I didn’t catch the mischievous note in her voice when she twirled the massive weapon like a toy and extended the grip towards me. “Here, see for yourself.”

“Sure, yeah lemme see—” _FWUNK_! The heft took me by surprise and the blade thudded into the ground loudly. I could barely support the hilt, and my knuckles began to turn white as I strained not to drop it.  “ _UHHFF…_ Not light. NOT LIGHT.”

Gretchen laughed so hard she doubled over while I struggled to even maintain my grip on what must’ve been at least forty kilograms of cold steel alloy… And I was only supporting the half of the sword that wasn’t resting on the ground. “You must not be worthy,” she teased.

“Yeah… Guess not… Here, uh, can you…” I grunted helplessly.

“Sure, yeah. Here.” With one hand, Gretchen took hold of the grip, lifting the weapon easily. She added a quick flourish as she replaced the sword into her half-sheath and cracked her knuckles. She grinned again at my slack-jawed reaction.

“How… Okay, what the heck,” I asked, incredulous. “Was that… your semblance, or the sword or…

“Kinda both. My semblance is kinda complicated and hard to explain.”

“Try me,” I grinned. If there one thing I was pretty sure of, is was that few people could out-dork me.

“So, short story is that my semblance is gravity manipulation. I can redirect the way gravity interacts with my body. You know how gravity is always pulling you down, and you’re used to it so you don’t really feel the effects but you know it’s there?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s different for me. Ever since my semblance first kicked in back during the early part of combat school, gravity has felt like a river, flowing through and around my body. Mostly, that current always just pulled me down. The more I practiced, though, the more I could start to re-direct that current into my kicks, punches, jumps… I even figured out how to wall-run for short distances. People all looked at me funny when I forged Quake,” Gretchen indicated the tremendous blade on her back before continuing, “It was bigger than me when I did. But my control over my own gravity and the gravity of anything I touch allows me to swing it around like it doesn’t weigh anything.”

“Ohhhh, because technically, when you’re holding it, it doesn’t! That’s really cool. So, what do the gravity crystals do then? There’s gotta be more to it than just pulling grimm towards the edge.”

“Yeah, there is. That’s where it kinda starts to get real technical, though. Sure you wanna hear it?”

I grinned. “Bring it.”

“Alright. So yeah, the crystal amplifies Quake’s gravimetric field so I can wield it even more easily. More than that though, the crystal responds to my semblance and aura by producing a lot of extra energy. It’s like the crystal harmonizes with my own powers and reacts. Dunno how many prototypes ripped themselves apart in my face before I figured that out back in combat school. Anyway, I figured out a way to siphon that extra energy off and get it into a state where I could actually control it. See this ring here?” Gretchen pointed at the edge of that circular opening in Quake’s guard. “It’s a super-dense osmium-tungsten alloy. I mixed a ton of powdered gravity dust into the crucible with the molten metals. That dust lost its charge a long time ago, so it remains inert, locked in the alloy until a crystal is inserted. But, as soon as I plug a new crystal, like this…” Gretchen withdrew one of the crystals from her pouch and locked one end of it into place in the guard. “…It all re-energizes.”

The tungsten ring in the blade went from a dull grey to a vibrant purple in just a few moments after the crystal was seated. The eerie violet glow reflected off the blade and off of Gretchen’s hands as she gripped it, grinning at my reaction. “At any time, I can pull the trigger and shunt all that energy by separating the blade down the middle, here, which breaks that loop. That’ll cause a gravity blast that gets bigger the longer the cycle goes unbroken. Made a boarbatusk explode that way once. It was awesome.”

“Ooohhh… I might have to get you to show me how you draw power from the pure crystal like that. Could be useful if I ever adapt it for Scourge or Thorn.”

“Nuh-uh. Closely-guarded super top-secret, that,” Gretchen said as she shook her head sarcastically. “Don’t worry, it’s okay to have only the second-coolest weapon at the school, Summer.”

“Psh. Please. Scourge would rip that oversized butter knife out of your hand in a heartbeat,” I shot back.

“Whatever you say,” Gretchen nodded with a wry grin. “Whatever you say.”

We both laughed as the two of us left the dispensary. Just as the doors closed behind us, our scrolls buzzed in unison, a broadcast alert:

**ALL FIRST YEAR STUDENTS:**

**REPORT TO THE EASTERN CLIFFS IMMEDIATELY. INITIATION WILL BEGIN IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. DO NOT BE LATE.**

“About time,” I said.

“Eastern cliffs, huh?” Gretchen’s eyebrow raised. “Emerald Forest it is, then.”

“Guess the professor wasn’t lying,” I said as I nodded. “C’mon. We’d better get there early. I don’t want to find out what happens to latecomers.”

Gretchen and I reached the cliffside with barely a minute to spare. I saw professor Ozpin standing on the very edge of the cliff alongside professor Hargrave. The headmaster nodded at me as I passed him and the dean, a gesture I returned before Gretchen and I followed suit with the students who’d arrived before us and took our places on a row of metal plates aligned a few meters from the precipice of the half-kilometer sheer drop before us.

“What do you think these are?” I asked Gretchen, who simply shrugged as she examined the devices upon which we now stood. Each had the crossed axe sigil of the Kingdom of Vale, and appeared to be more than simple solid platforms. There was a tiny amount of give in mine, as if there was some kind of mechanism beneath it. I ceased wondering about that when I heard the booming voice of professor Hargrave as he silenced the general murmur that had arisen amongst the line of students.

“Initiates. This is your time. You were all selected based on transcripts sent to us from your combat schools or your scores on our entry tests. Scores and records mean nothing out there, though,” Hargrave thundered as he indicated the vast woodland before us. “Now it is time to prove yourself in actual combat. The beasts in this forest are as numerous as they are varied. Do not underestimate their capacity to kill and destroy, remember everything you have learned, and you will be recognized this evening when teams are assembled for the first time. Become overconfident, or complacent, and… Well, there won’t be much point in sending out a recovery party for your remains.”

“What did he just say?” Gretchen gulped.

“Relax.” I was calm on the outside, but even I was surprised by the brutal candor of the dean’s statement. “You and I will watch each other’s backs. We’ll be fine.” Gretchen nodded, but in all honesty, I wasn’t sure who I’d just attempted to reassure- her, or myself.

Professor Ozpin stepped forward next. Calmly, he surveyed each and every one of us, took a sip from his mug, and spoke. “Your objective is on the far side of these woodlands. You are to recover one of the relics placed at an ancient temple to the Brother-Gods, located at the center of the ruins of the great Precursor city due east of here.”

A knot formed in my throat as soon as those words left the professor’s mouth, and Gretchen and I shared a look as the Headmaster continued. “Return here with that relic by this evening, and you will have earned your place at this academy. As Professor Hargrave indicated, there are many grimm between you and that goal, which is why it would behoove you to form larger groups in a mutual effort to ensure each of your peers survive. That being said, you will pair up with the very first person you make eye contact with upon reaching the forest floor. We are watching. Any attempt to sidestep that rule will be met with expulsion. Furthermore, both you and your new partner will be put on a team this afternoon with another pair from this challenge for the rest of your time at this academy.”

I turned to Gretchen. Our concern was mirrored in each other’s faces. “Stay close,” I murmured. My friend nodded.

“Now, if there are no further questions…” I thought I heard someone ask further down the line how exactly they would be getting to the forest floor from all the way up here. I wasn’t sure if Ozpin heard them or not, but he didn’t answer, regardless. “Excellent. Fight well, initiates. Good Luck.”

The instant he finished speaking, I saw a blur from the far end of the line. I recognized the silhouette of a student, flailing about from the unexpected launch as he tumbled far out over the cliff and down to the trees below. I realized then that the plate upon which I stood was in fact a small but powerful pneumatic catapult. The two guys next to me bumped knuckles, which I only found comical because the one closer to me was wearing some kind of mechanized exo-arm, the clenched fist of which dwarfed that of his friend. The other guy, a tall, muscular beach-blonde kid, pulled a pair of gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses off his partially unbuttoned shirt and down over his dark blue eyes with a wink in my direction before he crouched and extended a pair of bladed tonfas in each hand.

One by one, the line leading to Gretchen and I got shorter and shorter. Before too long, Aviator-guy was launched, soaring off with an exultant shout. That left me second in line behind his buddy. I noticed Ozpin watching me then with calm interest, heard the mechanical clicks of the launchpad next to me before a hiss of pressure sent the kid with the mecha-arm sailing off, and turned one last reassuring look in Gretchen’s direction before I was suddenly and unceremoniously hurled skyward over the vast forested valley below.

Every combat school I’d attended had, at some point, trained students on ‘landing strategy’. I’d never really taken it seriously—I mean, come on. How often was I _really_ likely to be falling at terminal velocity without a parachute towards a forest full of deadly monsters? Right about now, though, I was _really_ wishing I hadn’t asked. The trees that had looked like an unbroken, verdant green blanket from atop the cliff now rushed into individual focus at an alarming rate. _A little late to turn back now,_ I thought as I retrieved and unspooled Scourge. Ahead of me, an enormous old tree stood twenty or thirty meters above every other in the immediate area. That would do. I angled myself to take best advantage of my momentum, waited for the perfect moment, and ripped my arm forward, sending my whip arcing ahead of me just as I broke even with the highest branch capable of supporting my weight.

Since there was no dust reservoir selected, no flaming plasma arc activated as the end of the whip contacted and looped twice around my targeted bough. If it had, the intense heat would simply have burnt through and severed the branch and I would’ve continued falling unimpeded. As it was, I gripped Scourge with white knuckles as my inertia was brutally re-directed, and I fought the centrifugal force of the resulting swing that sent me looping again and again around the limb. Finally, I began to decelerate, and used the last, slow swing to flip up and onto my new perch a few meters above the even the highest waving leaves of the rest of the forest.

I took a moment to catch my breath and allow the adrenaline rush from the fall to abate before searching the skies for Gretchen. I saw her seconds later, sword in hand, hurtling towards the treetops about two hundred meters away. I watched as she crashed through the uppermost branches and out of sight. I knew had to get to her first, and began to trot down the branch towards the thick trunk of the tree. In my rush, I forgot that Scourge was still looped around the branch like some kind of tangled reverse yo-yo, and I almost lost my footing when my weapon didn’t give at all as I pulled.

Grumbling my frustration, I flicked the selector switch to burn dust. A flick of my wrist sent a wave of heat down and around the hopelessly snarled braid, vaporizing the end of the branch into smoke and ash. Once the bladed whip was dangling freely, I retracted and replaced it on its mag plate and carefully balanced across the branch down to the tree trunk. Extending Thorn into my right hand, I kept the three segments of the blades locked in their collapsed configuration to form a short dagger, the pivots of which rotated around the ring to align with the bottom of the fist I had clenched on its grip. Leaping straight down from the base of the branch, I jammed Thorn through the bark and into the dense hardwood of the tree itself, carving a gouge down the length of the trunk as I descended down into the darkness of the Emerald Forest.

When I was near enough to the ground, I yanked Thorn from the tree and extended it to its full length, kicking off the trunk and flipping backwards to land with my short sword brandished and Scourge retracted but ready for action in my back hand. The immediate area was clear of grimm, thankfully, so I jogged off through the underbrush in the direction I’d seen Gretchen falling.

It was slower going than I would’ve preferred through the thick undergrowth, but within a few minutes I made it to approximately where I thought my friend must’ve landed. There was no sign of her, save the top half of a tall pine that had been freshly and cleanly cloven from its base by what I presumed was her sword as she fell. “Gretchen!” I shouted, ignoring the risk of drawing more grimm to my location with the noise. “Gretchen! Where are you?” Nothing. I pushed on through the disorienting maze of tree trunks and rhododendron, eyes alert for any sign of motion. I was hoping beyond hope I’d find her waiting for me just over the next rise or boulder, pausing to call out every so often and listen for a response.

“Summer? Summer! Over here!” My ears perked up when after several minutes, I finally heard Gretchen’s voice answer my shouts. She was close.

I sprinted off, over the next hill and down, breaking into a clearing at the bottom just in time to see her sunder a beowolf from shoulder to thigh with Quake. Our eyes met, and for a moment I thought I had my first pick for a teammate. That thought was dashed a second later, though, when I saw the guy who’d launched just before me land a well-timed mechanical uppercut that shattered another grimm’s jaw and sent it flying as he posted up back-to-back in the middle of the glade with Gretchen. Damn. A vain hope that perhaps they’d never actually made eye contact flashed through my mind, but I brushed it aside. I’d been too slow, and that was that.

A single look past the pair of first years told me the situation was a little worse than simply not getting the teammate I wanted. In the clearing beyond Gretchen and her redheaded partner, dozens of bad-tempered black shapes bayed and snarled as they moved to encircle the duo. My best guess put their numbers at about forty of the werewolf-like creatures… A fairly large pack of beowolves. A roar from the thicket from which I’d just emerged alerted me to an imminent attack and I spun, lashing out with Scourge as I dodged and rolled left under a clawed strike from a beo that burst from the bushes. The braid snapped and a jolt of burning plasma roasted the grimm to ash that evaporated and blew away. The hedges rustled, and another dozen monsters appeared from the direction I’d come as I dashed over to my two classmates. They now completely surrounded us.

It didn’t take long before we were really in the middle of it. A seemingly relentless tide of teeth and claws flashed and snapped inches from each of us as we fought, burning, brutalizing and butchering wave after wave. I ensnared one of the creatures with Scourge, yanking it to a quick demise when I ran its gaping maw through with Thorn, and followed up that attack by whipping the legs out from beneath a pair who had reared up to swipe at Gretchen with their front paws. She and the redheaded boy finished them off, her with Quake and him with that massive powered gauntlet of his.

The pack didn’t let up, charging mindlessly in, relying on brute force and numbers to overwhelm us. At no point did that concern even cross my mind, though, as I let the dance of combat take me and slew everything that got within reach. Cool efficiency. Economy of movement. I could hear my dad’s lessons in my mind the whole time. This was just business. One of the monsters got past Gretchen and managed to snap its fangs way too close for comfort by my ear as I dismembered another to my front, but I didn’t flinch. I could sense its position well enough, and threw a blind thrust back and up with Thorn, its blade spinning around to a reverse-grip position as I did. The strike impaled the nearly-successful attacker through the chest, its wheezing, whimpering bark enough of a confirmation to me that I’d scored a critical hit.

Ripping my sword from the stunned and dying creature’s ribs, I pushed off and slid low to sweep-kick the legs out from the last minor beo in the pack. Gretchen and I dispatched it simultaneously with our blades as it yelped with shock and surprise at its undignified demise.

“Oh, sorry, did you want that kill?” Gretchen smiled as she hefted her blade.

“What are you talking about? I _got_ that kill.” I retorted.

“Nuh-uh. Bigger sword. By anime rules that means I got the kill.”

“But we’re not _in_ an anime, Gretch.”

“Uh, ladies, please. We still have a problem here,” Gretchen’s redheaded new teammate interjected. He was right. The pack’s alpha was still alive. While the younger grimm had rushed headlong into the fray, this one had hung back and watched. I remembered my dad telling me about these more evolved grimm. Alpha beowolves, ursa majors, greater nevermore, elder griffons, silverback beringels, even a wendigo once… All of them had been some of the most cunning and dangerous creatures he’d ever faced. I’d never seen one up close. This alpha stood probably close to six meters tall as it reared, its jaws alone large enough to swallow either Gretchen or me whole.

The monster’s ears perked straight up as it studied the three of us. We had just annihilated its pack, and though we were all a little out of breath, no one had so much as a scratch. Trails of strange scarlet energy curled away from its featureless glowing eyes, coals that betrayed neither fear nor rage as they burned from their deep-set sockets in the alpha’s bony skull. Finally, it dropped back down to all fours and began to pace back and forth, slowly closing its distance, testing the way we shifted to cover ourselves against its approach.

“Smart, this one,” the redheaded boy mumbled from my right.

I grunted. “Hm. We’re smarter. I’ll move in, piss it off, maybe get it to trip up. You two look for an opening. Don’t underestimate it, don’t attack early. I’ve got the middle.”

“Left,” Gretchen replied, affirming my plan by drifting wide to the huge monster’s right flank.

“Guess you know where I’m going,” her teammate said as he pushed out to my right, mechanical fist cocked and ready to counter if the grimm charged him.

The alpha let out a spine-tingling snarl, eyes fixated on me as I stepped forward, directly towards it. I wanted it to rush me, if only to give my other two companions a chance at killing it. I kept Scourge out but spooled up, retracting Thorn and replacing it against my gauntlet. I could retrieve it if need be for a quick counter, but as of right now I wanted to look as defenseless as possible… Another of my father’s little tricks. Tension mounted as the distance between me and the alpha’s teeth dwindled to within ten meters. The creature stopped, apparently fully aware that it was now surrounded, and I saw rippling muscles bunching beneath its coat of coarse black fur in preparation for a pounce. _Good._ My finger moved to the trigger on Scourge, ready for a quick deployment of the braid when the instant arose.

Suddenly, the eerie silence in the clearing what broken by the rapid _thump thump thump thump_ of sprinting footsteps behind me. I dared not take my eyes of the alpha to see who it was. “Tai! Wait!” the redheaded boy called to the individual whose pounding feet I heard. An unexpected concussive blast caused me to duck as a figure I recognized as the blonde guy from the clifftop sailed over my head, straight for the open, roaring jaws of the alpha.

“Nuh-uh! No biting!” I heard the newcomer scold the beo like he was admonishing a puppy. I thought he was a goner. The alpha’s jaws began to snap closed as it lunged at the boy. Without missing a beat, however, the grimm’s intended target curled his body into a ball and fired his tonfas upward, causing him to somersault forward and down, sailing barely an inch beneath the jaws of the beast. As he passed, he flipped one of his tonfas around and, holding it by the longer striking end, and managed to hook the beowolf’s lower jaw with an icepick-like spike that flashed out from the opposite side of the weapon’s T-handle grip.

The Alpha bellowed as its head was yanked downward, but it recovered, far too strong to be brought down and pinned by the weight of a single teenager. I watched as this ‘Tai’ kid was swung this way and that as the beowolf reared and shook its head violently. He held on, to his credit, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that grip indefinitely. “Let’s get in there and help him out!” I called to my other companions. The three of us rushed in, giving the beowolf some pause, long enough for Blondie to pull himself up and flip onto the back of its neck, retracting and dislodging his blade as he did. The beowolf growled and reached for the most immediate danger that was now sat upon its shoulders with its massive claws, but it was too late. Blondie, hanging on with his right hand gripping the monster’s fur, leaned left to hang off its neck, avoiding the swipe. The alpha craned its neck hard in the boy’s direction, attempting to snap at him, but as he did Blondie jammed the short end of one of his tonfas deep into its eye socket and fired another concussive round.

The bloodcurdling howl of pain was the loudest I’d ever heard. Enraged, the beast managed to grab Tai’s leg and rip him from its neck, throwing him like a rag doll. He’d be fine, I hoped. It mattered little. Gretchen, myself, and the redhead boy were all within striking distance now. Tai’s friend grabbed the wrist of the monster with his mechanical fist, putting the creature in an armbar as he twisted and stepped back. I slid underneath the still-snapping jaws from head-on, deploying Scourge’s braid and whipping it around the creature’s immobilized arm as I did. A flick of my wrist and Scourge burned right through the black flesh of the alpha, severing its right arm below the elbow.

Gretchen sailed in from the opposite side, but the beo wasn’t blind to his right. Maimed as it was, it still managed to dodge away from the powerful downstroke of Quake that would have decapitated it. I stabbed the creature’s left haunch with Thorn, hoping to slow it even more so Gretchen could recover and get another swing. As she attempted to do just that, however, the creature whirled on me. My mistimed leap to get out of the way was in vain as the beo grabbed Thorn’s braid with its remaining paw. It was against my gut instinct to relinquish a weapon in combat, so I held on… And subsequently learned the hard way that my instincts were mistaken. The alpha swung me back around to its right, using me like a flail and knocking over Gretchen, which caused her to accidentally hit the trigger on Quake’s grip. The blade split down the middle and a blast of dark purple energy exploded outward from the sword. No one had been braced for it, including the alpha. Everyone was hurled in whatever direction was directly away from the crystal in its grip, as if gravity itself flipped directions for a moment.

The blast abated, and I picked myself up from where I’d landed next to Blondie. I reached down to pull him to his feet, making eye contact as I did. The redhead and Gretchen both stood and reoriented themselves, as if still trying to figure out which way gravity was actually pulling. From the opposite side of the clearing where it had landed, the beowolf picked itself up too, and with a wounded snarl, retreated into the woods.

“We gotta go after him!” Blondie shouted as he attempted to run after the alpha. He took one step before crying out in pain and falling flat on his face again. “Ow. Alright, you guys run after him.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“Ankle. Where the alpha grabbed me. I think it’s dislocated.”

“Easy fix,” I grumbled. “Let me see.” The boy pulled up his left pantleg, and winced as I unlaced and removed his shoe.

“Dunno what you’re talking about, ‘easy fix’. Unless you’re some kind of doc.”

“Not a doctor. But I do have this,” I said as I retrieved a small trauma kit from my belt. “Guys? You two mind standing guard while I take care of the hero here?”

“Gotcha,” Gretchen affirmed, yanking Quake out of the dirt.

I undid the snap on the kit and rifled through tourniquets, bandages, painkillers… My dad had taught me to keep stuff like this handy, in case the worst happened and your aura gave out, exposing you to real injury.  “Aha. Here we go,” I said as I retrieved a thin mesh ankle sleeve from the pack.

“How is that little thing supposed to help?” Blondie wondered aloud.

“Just shut up and you’ll find out.”

“Sheesh. I really got Nurse Grumpy over here, Val— _OW ow ow OWWW_!” I’d tweaked his ankle on purpose for that last remark as I pulled the brace over his swollen foot and ankle. I gave a yank to the pull-tab that ran the length of the outside edge of the sleeve, tearing it out and breaking the seal on the integral packet of pain suppressants and cooling agents. Blondie sighed with relief. “Wow. Hardly feel a thing, now.”

“Good, this would hurt a lot otherwise.”

“Wait, wha—” _SNAP!_ Before he could protest, I yanked his foot back into line with his lower leg. “ _OWWww! AHHHhh…_ Ohhhh. I actually didn’t… Uhh… Yeah, I didn’t feel that.”

 “Don’t move. Cast’s gotta set so you don’t heal with a crooked foot.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Blondie grunted, tentatively appreciative. I pulled the secondary pull tab that ran along the instep side of the brace. The instant I did, a hardening fluid that reacts to open air spread through the breathable capillaries in the outer layer of the sleeve. Within seconds, the boy’s ankle was secure in a thin, rock-hard casing that he tested his weight on as he stood. “Nice. Thanks… er…”

“Summer Rose. Guess we’re on a team together, Blondie.”

“Guess so. It’s Tai, by the way. Taiyang Xiao Long.”

“You always just blast right into the fight like that, Tai?” I asked pointedly.

“Stopped you from being dog food,” Tai replied with a flippant shrug.

“We had that under control. I wanted it to attack me so Gretchen and… Sorry, I still don’t know your name,” I said as an aside to Gretchen’s companion before continuing, “So it would commit to going after me and those two could take it out.”

“Well, sorry that wasn’t my first impression when I came out the bushes and saw you thirty feet from an alpha beo with no weapon out.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I insisted.

“Never said you didn’t.”

“You… whatever. Just don’t do that again.” I realized then that I probably shouldn’t come off so antagonistically with a guy who was going to be my teammate for the next four years whether I liked it or not. “Please,” I added, my tone only a bit less unapologetic.

“I saw you land on that tree,” Gretchen said, as soon as my little spat with Tai seemed to be over. “Sorry. I was gonna try and come find you but… Grimm. You know. Whole pack versus me... I’m lucky Val here showed up when he did, and you a minute or two after.”

“It’s fine, Gretchen. Maybe the four of us will end up on a team when this is all over. For now, we just need to watch each other’s backs.” I turned to her teammate. “Val? Is that short for something or…?”

“Yeah, it is. You don’t want to know. It’s a mouthful. Pleasure to meet you though.” Val extended his massive mechanical hand to shake. I took hold of its solid steel index finger to return the gesture.

“You’re seriously not gonna tell ‘em?” Tai asked. “Come on, it’s hilarious.” In a stuffy, mockingly aristocratic impersonation, Tai continued, “Manfred Adler Dietrich Valkyrie, the sixth.” He snickered as he bowed, only to be shoved roughly to the ground by the armored palm of his embarrassingly named friend.

“Shuddup, Tai. Ugghh. Fine. Yeah, I’ve got one of those stupid family names. I hate it,” he huffed as he brushed his mop of ginger hair out of his bright, expressive cyan eyes.

“I’m good with Val,” I said. “All that other stuff is too much to bother remembering.”

“Thanks. Alright, cripple,” he said as he turned to Tai and hauled his friend to his feet. “You gonna make it? We really ought to get out of here before something else finds us.”

“I’ll be fine if you keep your hand to yourself from now on,” Tai growled, testing his ankle once again before slipping his shoe back on and lacing it tightly.

“I’ll keep my hand to myself when you learn to keep your trap shut.”

“Mmmm… Nope. Not gonna happen.”

“Exactly. So, don’t complain when I smack you upside that smart mouth of yours.”

“Alright boys. Trash-talk aside, does anyone have any idea where this ‘Brother-God temple’ is?”

I shrugged. “Kinda. Professor Ozpin said it was in the middle of the ancient city, but that’s way out to the east of here, at the foot of the mountain range. That’s a lot of ground to cover before this evening.”

“Then I guess we’d better get going,” Tai remarked impatiently.

“I’ll take point,” I said. With that, the four of us delved back into the undergrowth from the clearing and began our long trek to the very base of the Andarian Mountains.

 


	6. Initiation (Part 2)

**Chapter 6: Initiation (Part 2)**

“Valkyrie? Is… Is that…?

“I wondered the same thing when I first heard Nora’s full name, when Ozpin called team JNPR up after your own initiation. Surprised me so much I almost missed when Ruby was named leader of her own team a few seconds later. She looks so like her father, doesn’t she?”

“She... does.” Pyrrha was studying Gretchen’s partner with rapt attention as the two of us watched Val shove Tai in retaliation for revealing his full name. “Nora told Jaune, Ren, and I what she remembered of her family once. It wasn’t much, but I know for sure she remembered that gauntlet. She could recall it in detail, actually. For once, I don’t think she was exaggerating when she told us about the size of that thing.”

“No, no I imagine it’s hard to exaggerate about that.”

“Did you and Nora’s father stay in contact after… After you all graduated?”

I knew where this was going. Quietly, I hoped Pyrrha wouldn’t ask the obvious follow-up question when I responded. “We did. I actually stayed over with them a few times in the years following, when missions took me out that way.”

“Do you know what happened to him? To her mother?”

Of course… She’d asked. With my luck, it was probably _because_ I’d hoped she wouldn’t that she did. There was no point in lying, but the memory was rather painful. “I don’t know what happened to Talia. As for Val, he… He died…” I paused, swallowing hard against my guilt. “He died fighting by my side. I was the one who asked him to come with us. I’d met little Nora before on missions to Anima, but she’d been too young to remember. This time she did. Called me Auntie Summer, brought me a little daisy from their garden. Four years old. I… I saw Val kiss his little girl and his wife goodbye. Talia took me aside and made me promise I’d bring him back. It was an unsanctioned mission. Desperate. The same one that would take my life, actually.” I hadn’t meant to say so much. The memory was just as vivid as if it had just happened, and the words just… Came to me. I couldn’t stop them.

“Uh… Summer?”

“Yes, Pyrr—Oh no.” I snapped out of my remembrance, realizing then that as I had recalled the circumstances of Val’s death, the Veil had begun to shift. I heard a sound, one of the very, very many I’d hoped never to have to relive.

“VAL! NO!” Tai’s voice.

Those two words. The wind of the dust storm that raged in Salem’s realm that day whipping past our ears, the snarling and screeching of thousands, no, tens of thousands of grimm, an army bred for a single purpose… I could hear it, echoing around and through the thick greenery of the Emerald Forest moments before the lush surround began to darken and morph into the nightmarish, twisted black and red landscape of the battlefield that sprawled over the forbidden and cursed lands of the Queen of Corruption’s abode. The silhouettes of Tai, Qrow, and a half dozen other huntsmen and huntresses that battled back the onslaught began to materialize, details began to sharpen. I had to act fast.

I shut my eyes hard, gritting my teeth and covering my ears against the horrendous cacophony of that final battle, fighting to clear my mind of the horrible scene that was playing out around us and refocus on some point, _any_ point, in my initiation challenge. Finally, I found an image and held it, clinging to it like a sailor clutching onto floating wreckage at sea, and forcing that picture in my mind’s eye to eclipse the scene of death and hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm the rest of my mind.

An ursa roared so close to my ear I couldn’t help but imagine the stench of its breath. Even though I knew I didn’t actually smell it, my senses remembered the unbearable halitosis caused by rotten flesh that often became caught in bony the bony jaws of the beasts, and my soul actually gagged from the recollection. For a split second, I thought it wasn’t working. The veil wasn’t responding. A moment more passed before I realized that it was. I cracked one eye to discover that the ursa was not part of Salem’s army. The creature was simply one of several my group from initiation had just encountered. The sound of whipping wind was replaced by the crack of Scourge, the roars of the grimm army becoming by Val’s battle cry as he threw a powerful spinning backhand that passed right through my ethereal head and shattered the jaw of the beast whose roar I’d just heard.

My eyes opened the rest of the way, and I stood, looking at Pyrrha. “I… I’m sorry. I’m usually much better at controlling what the veil shows us. That was… an intense memory though. One thing I’m sure you’ll learn with time. The beyond will use our worst memories against us, and open the veil when we’re at our most vulnerable. Learning to clear your mind is the only way you’ll ever be able to stop it.”

Pyrrha sighed bitterly, looking around at the forest that wasn’t really there. “Do… Do you think this is Hell, Summer? I can’t really imagine any kind of afterlife being much worse than this place.”

“No.” I replied reflectively, my mind still recovering from its brief loss of control. “I’ve been to hell. This place can be way worse, if you’re not careful.”

“You blame yourself for what happened to him, don’t you?”

“I do. The whole thing was my idea. The whole damn thing was my fault.” In what would again be considered a role-reversal in the case of who was supposed to be consoling whom, the young girl to my side laid a comforting hand on my shoulder, empathetic green eyes locked on mine.

“No one would’ve gone on that mission who didn’t believe in you… Who wasn’t willing to stay by your side to whatever end. They all saw a battle worth fighting, hopeless or not. That’s not your fault. That’s just destiny.”

I felt my eyes water a little. I blinked the tears back, and smiled. “You’re right, Pyrrha. I know. I’ve… I’ve told myself that same thing a million times, but it’s always sounded hollow when the words I heard trying to convince me of it were just the echo of my own voice. Thank you.”

“Your welcome, Summer,” Pyrrha grinned. “Now, let’s get back to your initiation.”

“Agreed, yeah.”

“Y’know, I didn’t even see Raven and Qrow atop Beacon Cliff earlier. Where were they?”

“Oh, you know. Doing what they do best. Bending the rules and causing trouble. You’ll see here in a bit.”

There must’ve been a comical note of reflective exasperation in my voice at the mention of the Branwen twin’s troublesome nature, because Pyrrha actually laughed for only the second time since she’d arrived in the beyond. “They were that bad, huh?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” I replied as both of us turned to the four students in my initiation group as we broke through the tree line at the outskirts of the ancient Precursor city.

* * *

“Well,” Tai wondered aloud, the last to break the undergrowth and see the sprawling ruins of the settlement before us. “It’s definitely a city. And it definitely looks ancient. Think this is it?”

“Dunno, genius. You tell me,” Val shot back mockingly.

“I was kidding, dude. I know this is it. How dumb d’you think I am?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

Gretchen and I both snickered, but opted not to chime in as I jumped up on a nearby rock and surveyed the ruins for a moment. “Let’s focus, guys. No telling what we’re gonna be running into in there.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Tai said as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “There’s no way there’d be anything we couldn’t handle. You can’t run a school if all your first-years bite it during initiation.”

“Oh, you definitely just jinxed it. We’re dead.” Val grumbled.

Tai shrugged. “What? You think they’d send us in here without checking the place out first? I’m calling it. A couple of ursa, maybe the odd pack of beowolves. We’re in, we’re out, and back to the school before midafternoon.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” I said to Tai as I looked back from checking out the city. To everyone else, I pointed and added, “Looks like there’s only one bridge left standing. That way. Let’s go.” I jumped down from my vantage point and took the lead as we headed south, along a rutted and uneven archaic cobblestone road that followed the edge of a fifty-meter-deep ravine that served as the western border of Ancient Vale. The bridge I’d seen was much more impressive up close, made completely of heavy, quarried stone blocks supported by massive, hewn granite crosspieces that had fared surprisingly well through the ages. Enormous iron gears built into the crumbling ruins of the old gatehouse on the far side still looked poised to hoist the bridge skyward at a moment’s notice should some monster emerge from the vast forest on our side of the gorge.

The four of us stepped out onto the solid stone crossing, and I leaned out over the edge to take a look at the rapid, deep river that coursed through the chasm’s bottom. There were huge, jagged rocks here and there that stood against the current, behind which dangerous eddies whirled like miniature maelstroms. “Don’t fall,” I cautioned sarcastically.

“Yeah, cliff-jumping to certain death isn’t exactly on my bucket-list,” Gretchen replied.

We made it across the bridge, scrambling over the fallen stones of a long-collapsed grand archway and stopped as we got our first close up look at what remained of what had probably been a once-great civilization. I marveled at the sight of the old kingdom, imagining what it may have looked like thousands of years ago to travelers and merchants who passed through this same gate. Now, of course, it was nothing but a maze of shattered buildings, streets barely discernable among fallen bricks and toppled columns, the ruins sprawling over the foothills and even part of the way up the slopes of the nearest eastern mountains. I was anxious, but did my best to tell myself that the feeling that I was being watched was only my imagination.

“Now all we have to do is figure out where the temple is,” Val said as he looked around. “You don’t suppose there’s any signs, do you?”

“Yeah, don’t think so. Professor Ozpin said it was in the center of the city. Guess we just have to push on.” Turning to Tai, I asked, “How’s the ankle holding up?”

“Eh,” my teammate shrugged as we continued on. “Guess it’s fine. My aura’s been working on it, but this fancy little cast has been doing a pretty _solid_ job keeping it stable. Heh.”

“Oh, no,” Val grumbled after a pained mechanical facepalm.

“Was… Was that supposed to be a joke or something?” I asked Tai after a moment of confusion at Val’s reaction.

“Pun, but close enough.”

I raised my eyebrow, and Val groaned. “He does that sometimes. They’re terrible.”

“Oh, come on. That one wasn’t my best work, I’ll give you that,” Tai said defensively. “Admit it though, sometimes I can really... Bring the house down.” Tai held out his hands to indicate the collapsed walls and cracked foundation of the ancient residence through which we’d cut to reach the next street over, then looked to Val, Gretchen, and I for our responses.

“That’s it. I’m gonna break his other leg,” Val hauled back with his mechanical arm, balling his fist and aiming for Tai’s right ankle, but Tai leapt away.

“I’m actually with Val on that one,” Gretchen said. “Summer, you got any more of those casts in your little kit?”

“A couple. After that joke, though, I think we should just leave him here.”

“Man, you guys have no sense of humor,” Tai grumbled as he balanced a safe distance from Val’s reach across the top of what remained of the stone palisade that had once surrounded a rear courtyard attached to back of the ruined building. The four of us exited what might’ve once been the back gate of the property onto what looked like a relatively clear, wide cobblestone street.

“Looks like one of the main roads. Bet this’ll take us straight there.”

“Worth a shot,” Val said. “Kinda weird, right? We haven’t seen a single grimm since crossing the bridge.”

Tai raised his arms in an over-exaggerated shrug before backflipping off the wall to the street below. “What’d I say? The worst of it was back in the woods. What time is it? I bet we can still be back by… What the— _WHOA_!” Tai’s shout of surprise caused the three of us to turn just in time to see the pile of loose rubble onto which he’d jumped explode outward and the snarling maw of a creep emerge. The creature lunged and snapped its jaws after Tai, missing only barely as the boy leapt away.

“I got it!” Gretchen called as she hauled back with her massive sword, ready to cleave the stubby head of the grimm straight from its broad, armored shoulders with a single swing. The monster hissed as it perceived the threat, however, and dove back down into the detritus, its tail flicking briefly through the air as it burrowed back to safety. “Dang it,” Gretchen grunted, lowering her sword. “You good, Tai?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Just had to open your big mouth again, didn’t you, Tai?” Val shot over to his friend.

“Careful.” I cautioned. “Those things never…” I stopped mid-sentence as a chilling sound like the roars of dozens of grimm reverberated through the ground beneath our feet.

“Never what?” Val prompted, an uncharacteristically worried look crossing his typically happy-go-lucky features.

Before I could respond, the horrible roaring sound grew louder. Several heaps of broken stone not unlike the one the first creep had burst from moments before began to quiver violently all around us. That shaking grew more and more pronounced until one by one, the piles erupted and a growling, drooling horde of tenacious, two-legged creeps burst from the buried entrances of subterranean burrows and immediately began surrounding the group. “Never hunt alone,” I finished finally, annoyedly wondering why I always had to be right about this kind of stuff.

“Well that’s just great,” Tai grumbled as more and more of the monsters surged from all around, seemingly vomited up by the very ground like gigantic black bipedal ants. Within seconds, no fewer than fifty of the creatures, each twice the size of a large dog, formed an unbroken ring of beady, soulless red eyes and black, snaggle-toothed jaws around the four of us. “Anyone got a plan?” My teammate asked, a note of apprehension evident in his voice.

“We’ve all fought these things before. Don’t let them single you out.” I scanned the writhing, roaring mass of grimm once again, looking for alphas. I didn’t see any… And that worried me. “Back to back,” I ordered, taking up a position beside Gretchen and Tai as the ring of gnashing teeth closed ever tighter, grimm jostling for position, each slobbering for the first bite of Beacon Initiate.

“We can’t fight all these things, Summer,” Gretchen cautioned me over her shoulder.

“‘Course we can. Stick to the plan, stay together. This’ll be easy.” Secretly, I hoped nothing in my voice betrayed my own tense trepidation. That really was a lot of grimm. The creeps grew ever closer, slowly closing the distance bit by bit. Seconds ticked by before I started to realize something was off. Creeps were usually single-minded, charging rabidly into battle. These ones, however…

“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Gretchen’s statement echoed my concern perfectly. “What could they—” Before she could finish speaking, her question was answered as the ancient cobbles between the four of us cracked apart and the huge, osseous crest of an alpha creep, four times the size of any of the other minor grimm, emerged effortlessly through the packed earth and ancient stone as if it were no more than wet sand. The beast gave a bellowing roar to announce its arrival as its powerful legs and tail propelled its armored bulk from the earth. The four of us dodged away… Straight towards the now-charging waves of minor creeps, our formation dashed and any semblance of a strategy we had thrown into utter disarray by the violent ambush.

We couldn’t panic. The instant the grimm began to sense our fear, it would be all over, and I knew it. There was only one thing to do:

Kill.

Scourge snapped again and again as I side-armed it back and forth, filling the air in front of me with burning barbs that tore through an arc through the wall of grimm that fought to overwhelm me. Any of the creatures that managed to get inside my primary weapon’s most effective range met a swift end at the edge of Thorn, but even so I was far from untouchable. At one point, a pair of creeps charged me from either side whilst I dealt with one directly to my front. One of them managed to catch the back of my leg with a strike from its powerful tail, knocking me off balance, before I flicked my wrist and caught it about the throat at close range with Scourge and burned its head from its body. The other managed to bite down on my armored right forearm, but the polished black titanium alloy of my bracer took the pressure and I slung the creature off onto its back, eviscerating it with a quick spin of Thorn’s variable blade.

I had been working my way towards a height advantage in the ruined buildings beside the open street and, sensing my opening after another lash of Scourge successfully cleared a fleeting gap in the onslaught, leapt to the still-standing base of a nearby pillar. It was only a gain of about two meters, but at least now the grimm had to pile on top of each other, clawing and trampling over one other to get to me. I used the extremely brief respite to check the status of my companions before kicking a creep that got to close in the jaw and sending it toppling back down the mad scramble of vicious creatures. Val had extended a broad parabolic blade from within the forearm of his gauntlet, which he was using to great effect as he sliced and pummeled through anything that got too close. Tai, in like fashion, was doing as well as could be expected. If anything, he looked to be having fun, brawling his way through the chaos with an ear to ear grin spread across his face. At least one of us was enjoying themselves. Gretchen was doing well too, the wide arc of Quake cleaving easily through anything that dared come within reach… But she was in trouble and didn’t yet know it.

The alpha creep was focused directly on her, crouched low in preparation to charge as it clawed the ground like a bull. My friend was occupied, battling through dozens of minor creeps to her front, and didn’t see the imminent danger to her rear. The alpha was ten meters away from me. I could make that jump. I positioned myself as far back on the edge of the pillar as possible and focused as much aural energy as I could spare into my leg muscles. A single step into the lunge was all I could take from my limited purchase atop my perch, but it was enough to launch me far out over the battle below, leaving behind the minor creeps that had just began to snap at the top of the column.

The instant before the alpha would’ve begun its charge, I rolled out of my jump, face to hideous bony face with the monster. It paused, perhaps surprised that a meal would deliver itself so readily right to its jaws, before rearing back and striking. I sidestepped and spun to the left, managing a passing blow that glanced down the armor plates on the grimm’s neck before Thorn caught in a chink and bit deep into the black flesh beneath. I had to roll away before following up on the strike when the alpha whirled on me, teeth snapping shut way too close for comfort. The good news, I thought as I recovered and gained some distance from the monster, was that Gretchen was no longer in danger of getting blindsided by a cunning, vicious creature the size of a truck. The bad news… I now had the undivided attention of a cunning, vicious creature the size of a truck.

The alpha creep clawed at the ground again with one of its twin taloned feet, issuing a hiss that grew into a snarl as it pressed towards me. The creature and I circled, testing each other, just like in the earlier encounter with the alpha beowolf in the forest. The only difference, I resolved, was that this grimm wasn’t going to escape with it’s life like the other had. Just as I closed back to within the range of my whip’s full extension, however, I felt something. A tingle in the back of my neck: my aura alerting me to imminent danger.

Reflexively, I dodged right, just as a minor creep sailed over my shoulder from behind. The smaller creature landed clumsily, whipping around and tactlessly charging once again head on. A quick swing with Thorn ended the grimm, but the distraction proved just enough. My eyes snapped back to the much bigger threat… Too late. The alpha’s heavily plated tail whipped around from the side, catching me full across the chest plate and sending me sailing back into the wall of an ancient building. The back of my head struck the heavy cornerstone of the partially obliterated structure hard, and I slid to the ground, my vision blurring as I saw my aura flicker a deep red across my whole body.

I didn’t allow myself respite as I scrambled to my feet, blinking hard in an attempt to regain clear eyesight and cursing myself for letting the grimm get the better of me. Allowing my focus to become tunnel vision, being surprised by another threat, getting smoke-checked across the street… Rookie mistakes. I heard my father’s voice in my head. _It happens. Get up, clear your zone, get back to work._ Yeah, noted. Thanks dad. My head felt like it’d been run over by a semi. I had a bigger problem, too. The alpha was now barreling towards me full-tilt, and I was cornered. My vision blurred again, worse this time as a wave of pain rolled through my skull, but I shook my head and blinked back the distraction again, readying myself to evade the charge. Wait for it. Wait… Now! I leapt to the side milliseconds before I would’ve been gored against the side of the building by the horned crest of the alpha creep. My leap however, much to my chagrin, became an uncoordinated stumble as my rattled senses turned what would’ve been a graceful escape to a flailing, fumbling fall. I was pelted by pulverized rock from the powerful impact behind me as I hit the ground and heard the angry rumble of the alpha’s roar as it whirled through the cloud of dust to finish me off.

This was bad. I half kicked, half crawled my way backward, trying to get some distance, get an opportunity to roll away, anything. The alpha kept easily in pace though, walking slowly, almost seeming to savor its victory. Scourge had been knocked from my hand when the alpha had struck. I could see it in the street, meters away. The alpha lunged to seize my leg in its jaws, but I thrust myself backward with a hard kick to force the strike to miss and retaliated with a desperate thrust of Thorn. The lucky strike jabbed into the monster’s open maw, not enough to cause as serious wound, but definitely enough to piss it off. Black blood mixed with foul drool spattered everywhere as the alpha reared back, roaring in pain and anger. The grimm crouched, ready to leap forward and finish me off. The instant before it would have, however, a battle-cry and streak of blonde hair heralded the arrival of my hot-headed teammate.

I saw Tai somersault forward, jamming both of his concussive tonfas into the ground as he did to fire himself into an explosive-driven handspring towards the alpha just as it began to turn its head in response to the new threat. Before the monster could react to dodge or snap at the incoming initiate, Tai threw a vicious, mid-air right cross that connected with the alpha’s stubby snout and triggered his weapon to unleash another thunderous blast. The force of the explosion slammed the alpha’s head against what still stood of the heavy masonry of the wall beside it, sending chips of stone flying. At the same instant, my new teammate expertly aimed and timed a follow-up blast with his left tonfa in the opposite direction, the near-simultaneous recoil of the two shots whipping him three hundred and sixty degrees as he continued to sail forward. As he completed the spin, I saw Tai’s leg cock back like the hammer of some enormous revolver, a halo of golden energy forming around his knee like a mach-cone as he fired a flying knee-spear that struck forth with such tremendous power into the head of the alpha as it rebounded from striking the wall that the its thick, bony skull shattered like an egg. Black, sooty vapor exploded outward from the beast’s obliterated head as a quick backflip off the wall redirected Tai’s momentum and he landed back in the street, the corpse of the alpha evaporating quickly before him.

Standing and jogging over, he leaned against the wall in front of me and grinned. “I know, I know. Don’t do that again, you had it under control…” He sighed exaggeratedly. “Y’know, you and I need to stop meeting like this.” A straggling minor creep, one of the last remaining, charged him as he spoke, which he nonchalantly dispatched with a simple backstroke of one of his tonfas.

I squinted through my massive headache and shot a dry look back at him from the ground. He extended his hand, which I accepted, taking hold of his wrist and half-stumbling, half-sailing to my feet as he effortlessly yanked me off the ground.  “Thanks,” I said after a moment of steadying myself against the near wall.

“Alpha tagged you pretty good, huh?”

“Almost burned out my aura. Thought I was a goner till you showed up.”

“Yeah, well, can’t have my teammate dying during initiation. Wouldn’t look too good on my combat and mission records.”

“Ohhh, gotcha. Just looking after your stats, huh? Well, now I feel special.” I couldn’t help but grin at the remark, despite my near-death being the subject of the joke.

Gretchen and Val trotted up just about then too, having finished off the last of the now directionless minor grimm together seconds before. “That got pretty messy for a minute there,” Gretchen grinned as she handed me Scourge. “But, nobody died. Yay us, right?”

“Yay, us,” I said as I raised an unenthusiastic fist and halfheartedly pumped it once in mock celebration. A thought occurred to me then, however, that caused me to perk up. “So, hang on a sec. Have any of you ever heard of grimm coordinating around the commands of an alpha like that?”

“Mmm-mm.”

“Nah.”

“Can’t say I have,” Gretchen confirmed lastly.

“Me neither. That big creep almost got the better of us. Would’ve got me too, if Tai hadn’t saved my bacon.”

“Yeah, I saw you take that hit,” Gretchen replied. “Why’d you take the alpha on alone? All four of us couldn’t even handle the last alpha we ran into.”

“It almost charged you. You were dealing with a bunch of the little ones and it was about two seconds from taking you out. I got its attention and, well, you saw what happened after that.”

Gretchen nodded equivocally as she considered it. “Hm. Yeah, no that’s a… That’s a pretty good reason, I guess. Don’t do that again though. You might not get so lucky next time.”

“I don’t think I’d call that luck,” someone remarked from nearby. Tai, Val, Gretchen and I each snapped our attention to the alleyway from which the new voice had spoken. I knew who it was, even before Qrow’s lanky frame stepped out from around the corner and into view.

“Qrow. How long have you been there?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest plate and making no effort to mask the distrust in my voice.

“Couple seconds. Heard the commotion from a few blocks away and headed straight here.”

Raven exited a partially collapsed doorway from the building adjacent the alley as her brother spoke. “Looks like you all had the situation well in hand, though,” she added.

“What do you want?” I grumbled at the two of them, my suspicion doubling with the arrival of Qrow’s sister.

“You’d think it’d be kind of obvious. We’re here to team up,” Raven replied evenly.

I shared a look with Gretchen before turning back to the twins. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, after that conversation yesterday,” I replied. “I’m betting you and I would have pretty different definitions of the word ‘Teamwork’.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Raven agreed. “I would think that’s irrelevant now, since we all have the same job here, but if you don’t want our help…” Raven’s voice trailed off as she shrugged and turned away. A second later, however, she turned back. “Oh, I guess I should warn you though. Have any of you been to the temple yet?”

“Not yet. Been a little busy dealing with every creep in the city,” Val answered.

“Creeps, huh? Well, if those little things gave you so much trouble, have fun dealing with the herd of goliaths Qrow and I saw up there. C’mon Qrow.”

Tai raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Goliaths?”

“Whole herd,” Qrow confirmed as he turned to leave with his sister.

“Hold up. Hold up.” Val waved his exo arm to stop the twins from leaving. “I dunno what your problem is with each other,” he said as he indicated both me and the Branwens, “But if there’s any more grimm between us and the temple we’re gonna need all the help we can get. Especially if it’s goliaths we’re dealing with.” Tai nodded his assent, and Gretchen looked at me with a shrug.

I was outvoted, apparently, and finally sighed my assent. “Alright. Alright. Fine. Let’s just go.”

The six of us began to head out, passing close by the gaping hole from which the alpha had surfaced at the beginning of our fight with the pack of creeps. Gretchen stopped at the precipice, looking down into the burrow as if she was wondering about something she saw inside. “Guys. Look at this real quick.”

“What’s up?” Val asked as he headed over to his teammate, with the rest of the group right behind him.

“Down there. Do those… Do those look like manmade stones? Like some kind of tunnel?” Gretchen pointed down to deep within the hole, and I followed her finger with my eyes to almost where the walls of the burrow disappeared into darkness. Sure enough, I saw the packed earth give way to layers of precisely hewn stone bricks, the support structure of some ancient subterranean tunnel that seemed to run the same direction as the wide main street upon which we now stood.

“Sewer system. These Precursors had functioning underground waste removal networks long before any of the modern kingdoms managed to develop anything like it.” It was Val who spoke, and Gretchen and I both looked questioningly at him in response to his unexpected historical knowledge.

“Nerd,” Tai jabbed.

“I had an expensive private education when I was younger,” Val grumbled defensively. “Always liked history. Helped me imagine being anywhere _but_ my family’s mansion.”

“Oh, poor you. Must be hard, growing up rich,” Raven remarked snidely.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, believe me,” Val shot back. “That tunnel down there is probably part of that network. It’s never been fully explored, but archaeologists think it probably spans this whole city. About a thousand years ago, the ancient kingdom of Vale made efforts to re-inhabit and rebuild this old city. This place would’ve _been_ Vale today, if it hadn’t all gone wrong.”

“Gone wrong?” My ears perked up and I felt the back of my neck grow hot as I shared another look with Gretchen. “What happened?”

“No one can really say. Records from then all disagree. Some say grimm, some say plague… They all have a common theme though. Something about this place drove people insane.”

My mind again flashed to the scene of me, sitting in my father’s lap beside Kyrin and the other tribespeople at the fireside in the gathering tent. Red Wolf’s eyes as he spoke about how the voices in the ruins almost caused him to lose his mind. _No way,_ I thought. Even more evidence that the old chief had been telling the truth.

My focus was jerked back to the moment when Qrow put up his hand. “I’m gonna stop you right there, man. The history lesson is _fascinating._ Really. But how does _any_ of this help us?”

“I was getting there, hold your horses. So back then, this sewer system quickly became the main highway for smugglers and thieves. A massive criminal empire developed in the tunnels and cisterns beneath the city, whilst reconstruction efforts continued above. Accounts say you could get anywhere within the walls completely unseen from in there. Led to thieves sometimes being called ‘pissfoots’ for the way their boots would always be soaked through with whatever ended up in the sewers.”

“Gross,” Gretchen inserted with disgust.

“And…” Raven prompted impatiently, “You were getting to how this helps us?”

“The three huge aqueducts that fed the city and by extension, the sewers, fed straight into the temple from a snowmelt lake deep in the Andarians. The people of Ancient Vale were really religious, and no faith was more prevalent than the Acolyte of the Brother Gods. It was fitting, then, that once the aqueducts were repaired, all the city’s life-giving water flowed from the temple that honored the Creator-Brothers. Our objective.”

“You’re saying we could follow this tunnel straight to the temple without the goliaths noticing?” Tai asked.

“Yeah. There were no pumping stations back then, so everything had to be run by gravity. If we make sure that every turn we take follows and upward grade, we’ll reach the spot where some of the inflow from the aqueduct was split off to feed the sewers, right at the center of the city. Should be right beneath the temple itself.”

“You’re talking like we agreed to this already,” Raven said.

“We almost died fighting what came out of there a few minutes ago. Now you want to go in?” Gretchen asked, equally skeptical.

“I didn’t say that. I just said it might work,” Val replied. “But if there’s goliaths between us and the temple on the surface, this might be our only real option.”

I thought for a moment before pitching in, “My aura’s coming back up, but I think we should still try to avoid any more fights if we can. It’s worth a shot.”

“I’m down. If it means skipping a fight with a dozen monsters the size of small buildings, it could be perfect,” Qrow voted.

“Let’s do it,” Tai agreed. “No way whatever we might run into down there could be harder to kill than goliaths. I’ve never even heard of someone taking even one of those things down, let alone a whole herd.”

Raven and Gretchen both rolled their eyes, with Gretchen adding an exasperated sigh. “Alright. Well, when we’re running for our lives through the dark from another pack of creeps or beos or whatever, don’t say I didn’t call it.”

“Who wants to go first?” Tai asked.

“I got it,” I replied, extending Thorn’s dagger form just as I had for my landing strategy and leaping into the hole without any further ado. My short blade slowed my descent into the utter blackness of the ancient tunnel, and moments later when the exit dug by the alpha gave way to the open sewer system I yanked my weapon from the dirt and braced, unsure of how far I’d be falling. A breathless three meters later, and my feet struck stone in the pitch darkness. I rolled out of the fall, weapons held at the ready in case I were jumped by some unseen threat. To my relief, the sewer was dead quiet, and I whistled up to the faces I saw peering over the edge of the hole. One by one, the other five members of my group landed in the gloom next to me.

“Who has a light?” Qrow asked from somewhere to my left.

“I do,” I replied as I dug blindly through my little survival kit, eventually finding and retrieving a small but powerful penlight.

“‘Course you do,” Tai said as I clicked the light on, revealing the bare, ancient pavers and brick walls of the tunnel. “What _don’t_ you have in that little kit of yours?”

I shrugged. “Snacks.”

The response drew a snicker from both Gretchen and Val, and I could’ve sworn that in the dim illumination outside the direct cone of my flashlight’s beam I saw Raven crack a slight smile too. I chalked that up to a trick of the light as the six of us headed off down the tunnel, occasionally passing the beginnings of burrows the creeps from earlier had used to dig up to the street from the sewer network.

Val had been right about the slight grade as we headed up the passageway towards the center of the city. It’d be imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t paying attention, but just barely clear enough if you were really looking for it. The tunnel system went on for seemingly forever, every step of that eternity we took slowly and cautiously in an effort to minimize the echo of our footfalls and listen intently for sounds that would indicate the presence of more subterranean grimm. Fortunately, we heard nothing. The only signs of life in these tunnels were the rats that scurried away down into the dark or off through offshoot tunnels ahead of us, and the cobwebs that hung here and there, some large enough to need to be brushed aside as we followed the slope towards our objective. It wasn’t long before I’d completely lost track of our path through this maze as we followed the grade through twists and turns so numerous it truly would’ve taken an experienced pissfoot to navigate effectively. I hoped fervently that we wouldn’t have to beat a hasty retreat out the way we’d come… We’d never find our way out.

After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, the tunnel broke out into a large, round room like some kind of underground rotunda, with a drainage grate high in the center of the ceiling through which natural afternoon light shone. The beam of sunshine was a welcome change from the pale, too-white glow of my flashlight, which I clicked off as we stopped.

“Cistern,” Val said simply. “Probably used to be the headquarters of some crime syndicate or another back in the day.”

“Cut the history lesson out this time. Which way?” Qrow asked impatiently.

“Whichever way is uphill. There were seven of these cisterns if I remember right, each with one inflow and six outs. Those seven inflows were the direct line to the main reservoir beneath the temple.” The six of us split off to check the tunnels spaced evenly about the walls of the room, meeting back up on the far side from our entry point.

Tai shrugged. “None of these really look like they head uphill.”

“I can’t tell either,” Gretchen agreed. Several of the others nodded their assent as well.

“We need some way to check. Anyone got a canteen? We could pour some of it out at each tunnel entrance and see which way it flows.” Everyone except Raven shook their heads at my query, with the elder Branwen twin staring dryly at her brother as he gestured his denial.

“Cough it up, Qrow,” Raven ordered after he noticed his sister’s look.

“What? Nuh-uh. I’m going to need it after this stupid initiation,” Qrow insisted. To that, Raven’s look only intensified as she narrowed her eyes and leaned in threateningly. “Dammit. Fine. For the benefit of the group, not because of that stupid ‘alpha-female’ thing you’re trying to do right now with that stupid look,” He said, apparently fully aware that she wouldn’t take no for an answer for whatever it was that she wanted him to forfeit. To my surprise, the seventeen-year-old boy reached into his shirt and pulled a brand-new, silvery hip flask out from some unseen pocket inside the garment. “I’d better get that back,” he grumbled as Raven wordlessly snatched it from him and turned back to me. This time, she really was grinning, like depriving her brother of his booze brought her genuine mirth.

“I’m guessing there’s no drinking age wherever you guys are from?” Gretchen asked.

“Outside the walls, the law is what you make it, City-girl.” Raven said simply as she moved over to the nearest tunnel entrance and twisted off the cap of Qrow’s flask. I heard the same aggressively-indifferent note in her voice as she’d had during our argument in the cafeteria and pursed my lips in irritation, sharing the look with Gretchen. Raven didn’t see the exchange and poured a liberal amount of the liquid out just inside the tunnel, watching it intently for a moment. “Nope,” she said, smirking back at Qrow and moving to the next sewer passage. “Nope,” came her voice again, much to her brother’s growing irritation. “Nope… Nope… Oh, here we go. Maybe. C’mere,” Raven finally said as she waved the group over to one of the seven identical arched tunnel exits.

As we reached her, she poured out another long stream of the liquor before Qrow snatched the flask back in protest. He shook it to listen if there was any more of the powerful-smelling liquor inside before putting it to his lips and tilting it back. I watched as his face twisted into a disgusted scowl as he did, pulling the flask away from his mouth and holding it upside down, shaking it to emphasize its emptiness. “I hate you,” Qrow grumbled to his sister, who shrugged.

“Stuff stinks like paint thinner anyway. I’m doing you a favor,” she said before indicating the track of the liquid as it rolled back towards the cistern instead of off down the tunnel. “Looks like we found our route. Let’s go.” Again, we headed off, and I clicked my light back on as we descended back into the utter darkness of the inflow passageway.

Thankfully, there were no more confusing turns from that point on. The way was arrow-straight as we headed off, and we picked up our pace a little knowing that we still had to get back before sundown. The cobwebs that had hung down here and there before had begun to increase in number too, I noticed, becoming denser and more frequent the further we went. Though I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, it started to seem that the individual strands of webbing themselves became thicker, springy to the touch and more and more difficult break through with a simple wave of the hand like the others had been.

“I swear, if we start running into a ton of spiders down here, I’m heading right back out the way we came,” Tai grumbled.

I looked over my shoulder at him in disbelief. “You’ll go head to head with an alpha beowolf _and_ alpha creep like you were born to do it, but you’re scared of spiders?

“No, I just… Look, don’t judge me. Just don’t like ‘em, is all. Like, imagine being a bug. Caught up in a web, defenseless while some freakin’ creature wraps you up even more and pumps you full of venom so it can suck your guts out like a smoothie while your still alive later. Freaks me out.”

Qrow and Val both snickered. “Don’t worry, Tai,” the latter of the two boys jibed. “I’ll keep you safe from the creepy-crawlies.”

“Shuddup, Val. You’re scared of snakes.”

“Am not!” Val objected, clearly defensive about the topic.

“Guys. Look.” I shone my flashlight down the tunnel. The ever-so-slight grade of our path sloped sharply up about fifty meters ahead. Almost the entire way was thick with webbing, but there was definitely natural light filtering down from where the passageway rose out of sight.

“Must be the end of the line. That slope is probably what gave the water that came through here enough of a flow rate to—”

“Yeah, fascinating stuff, but don’t we have a schedule to keep or something?” Qrow interrupted. Val glared at him but didn’t respond. “C’mon. Let’s get out of these tunnels,” the Branwen brother said as he pushed past the group to take the lead. As he did, a rat scurried off with a squeak of fear as it avoided his stride, only to get caught up in the matted mess of web that blocked its path a few meters off. As we watched, a shadow cast by my flashlight against the webs ahead danced through the sticky trap towards the stricken rodent. The shape to which the shadow belonged slowed, and I could make out eight jet-black legs with grasping talons at the ends, each supporting the lean, recluse-like body of a small grimm widower. The chicken-sized monster hissed before leaping onto the catch, spinning it with its back legs and expelling a thick weave of silk before chomping down with its four mandible-like fangs. The rat gave one more muffled shriek from inside its cocoon, twitched once, and was still.

“What’d I say? Spiders. No, worse. Grimm spiders. I’m out. You guys can deal with that,” Tai turned to head back to the cistern, but stopped cold. “Oh… crap. Guys?” I turned to see what was panicking about. In the gloom behind us, I saw not one set, not two, but hundreds of sets of glowing red eyes dotted the darkness, each of which I knew belonged to a widower. My arm swung around and I illuminated the passage behind us to the terrifying new threat that must’ve been stalking us since we entered the main inflow tunnel from the cistern. The creatures stopped, hissing in unison in response to the light, the closest ranks among them backing up slightly. Some of the larger ones in the group, up to half the size of the creeps we’d faced, reared up on their back legs and clacked their fangs together threateningly.

“Run!” I shouted. Keeping the light pointed to the rear in my right hand as I drew Scourge with my left, I pushed the rest of the group past me down the tunnel and whipped the braid in an underhand motion back towards the deadly mass of armored spiders. The first few rows of widowers evaporated with the arc of flaming plasma that crackled from the emitters, but more simply took their place as the creatures gave chase. I ran to follow my group, lashing out several more desperate times as the horde scuttled after me. It didn’t take long, however, before I heard the telltale fizzle and pop that signaled the complete expenditure of my burn reservoir. Cursing my rotten luck, I switched to shock dust, but that reservoir burned out after a few moments as well, having nearly been depleted in the battle against the creeps. Ice dust was my last option, an option I rarely used because of how intense the effects of the freeze blast could be. Given the circumstances, however, now was as good a time as any. I hit my selector and spun on my heel, snapping Scourge emphatically over my shoulder and down. Rather than the familiar arc dancing from emitter to emitter before crackling into my target, the barbs glowed a pale blue along their contacts. The level indicator on the selector dropped instantaneously to empty, and I felt the dank warmth of the sewer sucked away as the massive charge of near-absolute-zero dust supercooled the air to well below freezing.

Every molecule of water in the air nearby skipped the liquid state completely and froze outward from Scourge’s point of impact in a powerful wave of directed deposition, forming massive frozen spikes that extended violently and slammed through the walls and vaulted ceiling of the tunnel as they grew. Brick began to fall as the tunnel shivered from the impact, and cracks appeared at the points of puncture from the ice spikes that spread rapidly overhead. A chunk of brick caught my shoulder as I turned to escape the cave-in. The rest of the group was already several meters ahead of me, with Val leading the way as he sliced through the ever-thicker webs with that retractable blade on his forearm. More rock and brick bounced against my mostly-regenerated aura as I struggled to catch up, and I could taste the dust in the air threatening to clog my throat with every breath.

We reached the incline at the end of the tunnel and I slipped when my foot caught a chunk of fallen brick in my scramble up the forty-five-degree slope. I caught myself, but my flashlight fell from my grip and rolled down the incline, its light disappearing in seconds beneath tons of falling stone and dirt. What was worse, I felt myself sliding down too, the loose dust that coated the flow ramp turning my clamber up to safety into a near-impossibility. I extended Thorn, jamming it into the brick and hauling myself up desperately, one arm-length at a time as neither my feet or other hand could find real purchase. Finally, I made it to the top, throwing myself through the opening and down to the floor of the central cistern about a meter below.  I coughed from having inhaled what seemed like a lung full of that dust in my mad sprint towards safety, my throat clear enough after a moment to look up and assess the team. “Everyone okay?” I croaked, coughing one last time as I stood straight.

“Barely,” Tai grumbled, massaging a bruise on his neck.

Everyone else nodded or gave thumbs up before standing and taking stock of our situation. Light filtered in from heavy, stylized iron grates located in a radiating pattern around the ceiling of the room in which we now found ourselves, a dry subterranean reservoir easily four times the size of the earlier cistern. In the center of the open space, a ring of massive columns stood that almost seemed to shimmer in the rays of light that shone in from above. It was strangely beautiful in a way, mesmerizing, even… But that was before I realized exactly what was causing the dazzling reflection from the surface of the columns. Each pillar was in fact coated bottom to top with layer upon layer of dense spider silk. The sinister sticky trap covered the entire ceiling of the reservoir, all the way over our heads and down the surrounding walls.

“Well… There’s always a chance we killed all the widowers in the cave-in, right?” Val asked hopefully. As if in response, a chilling hiss sounded from somewhere in the center of the room, amidst the connecting arches of the seven pillars.

“I’m gonna go ahead and say no,” Qrow said as a dark shape that had remained motionless between the tops of the pillars following our emergence into its lair shifted. Our eyes snapped to the movement just as the first of eight enormous legs, each the width of Tai’s torso, appeared from the shadows one by one. Talons on the end of each limb gripped the silk-strewn ceiling, pulling behind them the grotesque, nine-eyed head and bulbous, bloated body of a king widower. The terrifying creature, twice the size of the alpha creep and the third monstrous alpha grimm we’d had the unfortunate luck of running into today stared unblinkingly at the six dirty, web-covered and exhausted teenagers before it. It clicked its fangs once or twice before letting out a bloodcurdling shriek and charging across the ceiling with terrifying speed for a creature of its size.


	7. Initiation (Part 3)

**Chapter 7: Initiation (Part 3)**

“Where are you two going!? We need to stick together!” I shouted at the Branwens as Raven and Qrow both turned to abandon the team and sprint around the perimeter of the reservoir, away from the group and angry giant spider.

“Interesting word choice,” Gretchen said from my right as the twins stopped and looked at each other, apparently wordlessly deciding what their odds of survival were with and without the whole team. Before they could either continue their flight or return, the widower turned off of us to focus on the two lone initiates. I watched as its abdomen twisted completely around while its head and legs stayed inverted and clung to the ceiling. The gruesome contortion exposed the black, soft underside of the creature. In a move so quick no one could react, the grimm’s bloated back end contracted and pulsed once, shooting a line of silk the thickness of my wrist from its spinnerets straight for the pair of initiates. Qrow dodged out of the way, but the stream of webbing caught his sister about the ankle as she turned to run back to the group as well.

“Dammit, Qrow!” Raven shouted, as if she blamed her brother for her current predicament.

“Cut the string!” I shouted to her as the back four legs of the widower twisted around in the same disconcerting manner as the monster’s abdomen and began to reel Raven in, dragging her along the ground and then up towards the reach of its grasping claws. Whether or not she’d heard me, I didn’t know, but she drew her sword just as she reached the creature’s legs and it began to wrap her in a dense, wide net of immobilizing silk. A lightning quick strike with her weapon’s bright-red blade severed the ensnarement and the tip of one of the monster’s legs at the last second before she would’ve been completely enveloped. The grimm screeched in pain and retreated a few meters along the ceiling as Raven fell, landing hard on her back with her legs completely encased in a thick cocoon of webbing. Her sword clattered across the ground out of reach and she coughed, the wind driven out of her.

I led the charge as the other five of us rushed to Raven’s position. We had almost reached her as she sat upright and began struggling to tear through the silk that bound her legs with her bare hands, issuing a string of profanities as she did. The spider had begun to move back in, eager to finish the job, but Tai and Qrow both began firing wildly at it. Concussive eight-gauge slugs from my teammate’s golden tonfas and dust-infused frangible buckshot from Harbinger’s double barrels caught its vulnerable underbelly and drove the monster back, and it retreated with a hiss around to the relative safety of the back side of the structural colonnade in the center of the room. “Cover me,” I said to the other four members of the group as I slid in from my dead sprint to Raven’s side.

 “What are you doing?” The twin snapped as I recovered and knelt by her.

“Shut up and hold still,” I shot back, Thorn snapping into a full extension in my right hand. A single, clean slice rent the silk securing her legs, and Gretchen kicked the crimson-bladed no-dachi back from where it had come to rest moments before. Raven snatched the hilt of her weapon, sheathing it as she stood. “You’re welcome,” I grumbled in response to the venomous glare she gave me before moving back to her brother’s side.

“We need to get out of here. That thing’ll be back.” Gretchen pointed out. As if it had heard her, the king widower reappeared, racing along the outer wall of the reservoir. Tai and Qrow’s ranged weapons did nothing to slow its charge this time, with its armored dorsal carapace shrugging off the blasts like chaff thrown at the side of a barn.

“Any last-ditch ideas before we die?” Qrow shouted over his shoulder as he jammed extra rounds one by one into the two circular magazines that surrounded Harbinger’s axial mechanics.

“Head’s up!” Val shouted. I saw his metal fist drop as if dislocating at the wrist, and a short, heavy barrel telescope out from within his weapon’s forearm. He knelt and fired, a glowing fireball the size of a melon flashing past the spider’s head. The monster paused just as it had almost reached us, and I could’ve sworn its rattling hiss sounded like spidery laughter.

“You missed! How could you MISS!?” Tai shouted.

“No I didn’t!” Tai shouted back as the six of us retreated back towards the center of the reservoir and away from the wall-crawling grimm. The shot from his arm had indeed not struck the widower, impacting instead into one of the ornate grates in the ceiling. The thick iron vaporized at the point of impact and was left twisted and glowing around the edges of a gaping hole that led out to street level. “That’s our exit!”

“You couldn’t have aimed it, oh you know, a bit closer?” Raven chastised.

“Not helpful, Raven!” I shouted, narrowly dodging another stream of silk as the widower attempted to snag one of us before we got out of range.

“Shut up! I can get us out of here. We just need to get either me or Qrow out to street level. Would’ve been easier if the hole wasn’t way the hell over there!”

“Might’ve said something earlier, then!” Val responded with equal vitriol. “Alright. Raven, Tai, C’mere! The rest of you, cover us!” The widower had leapt off of the wall and was now on the ground, pursuing us to the center of the reservoir. Gretchen, Qrow and I positioned ourselves between Val, Raven, and Tai and the incoming danger.

“Fastball!” I heard Val shout to Tai, who grinned.

“Got it! Raven, head for the hole, and when you hear me yell ‘jump’, I _need_ you in the air!” Raven nodded at Tai’s instruction, the first cooperative action I think I’d seen her take yet as she sprinted off towards the break in the grated ceiling.

“Qrow, block for her!” I ordered Raven’s brother. His leap away was all the assent I needed, and I again focused on the widower. The monster was now dangerously close, it’s seven remaining sets of claws clanking against the cobbles as it sped towards us. I rolled left as Gretchen went right, outflanking the creature. Though Scourge had no dust charge remaining, I still used it to capture one of the monster’s legs, forcing it to turn away from Tai and Val back towards me. The barbs of my main weapon caught between one of the creature’s leg segments and I yanked, severely damaging the joint as my weapon pulled free. The monster shrieked in pure rage and agony once again and tried to rush me, but its wounded leg couldn’t take the weight of its own swollen body and the segment snapped backward as its bulk slammed into the ground as if its leg hadn’t even been there at all. The creature flailed about as it tried to find its footing on its remaining legs, the segment I damaged hanging on by only a few tendons.  Handspringing back to the monster’s front, I lashed out again as it plucked itself off the ground, ripping Scourge across the creature’s face and tearing out four of its eyes with a single stroke.

From the grimm’s other flank, Gretchen pressed her attack and clove another of its rear legs completely off, leaving it now with but five of its appendages and sending it into a rage. The monster lashed out with the adjacent leg from the one that had just been severed and Gretchen was kicked across the ground before she could deliver the backstroke with Quake. With that threat temporarily neutralized the spider scuttled towards me as fast as its remaining limbs could take it, just as I saw Val haul back and throw Tai like a man-sized baseball as the latter braced his feet and weapons in the palm of his friend’s mechanical hand.

“Jump!” I heard Tai shout to Raven as he blasted off of Val’s metal palm with his tonfas, rocketing on a perfectly straight trajectory for the gaping hole in the iron grate. Raven leapt and met him in midair, and I saw Tai grab her wrists, somersaulting to fling the black-haired girl over his shoulders and effectively transferring his incredible momentum to her before my view of the boy’s ‘fastball’ maneuver was blocked entirely by the rearing giant grimm barley two meters to my front. I did the only thing I could do, having been backed up against one of the web-covered pillars in the center of the room—I charged. The monster’s fangs struck forth, but I rolled beneath the attack to deliver a slash to the underside of its thorax and abdomen with Thorn. Emerging behind the now gravely wounded creature, I leapt out of range of any counter attack and prepared to re-engage, whirling back on my adversary.

To my surprise, the widower didn’t turn to attack again. Instead, it began crawling pitifully away, leaving a trail of rapidly evaporating black blood as it retreated to the area between the pillars. I noticed then, however, something I’d missed before in the shadows beneath the ringed colonnade. A pool of midnight-black liquid, the like of which I’d never seen nor my dad had ever mentioned, filling a recess hewn into the floor at the dead center of the room. The widower dragged itself straight into the foul fluid, over the precipice and down, disappearing beneath the thick, syrupy sludge. As I watched, the surface of the pool grew deathly still… Before suddenly boiling forth again as the widower, fully healed from its wounds, emerged with a blood-curdling screech. All nine of its glowing eyes glared straight at me as the thick black substance dripped from its face and mandibles, and all eight of its legs appeared very much whole and undamaged as it again charged.

I turned and sprinted away from the regenerated grimm, hoping that whatever Raven had planned to affect our escape, she was prepared to make it happen _now._ I saw her dangling by one hand from the grate, struggling to hang on as she tried to pull herself up. Her hand slipped, and I thought we were doomed… But at the last second, an arm reached through the hole punched by Val’s cannon blast and caught her by the wrist, pulling her up and out to street level. For a split second, nothing happened, and I thought she’d abandoned all of us. It was just as she said. She was going to take care of ‘number one’. Suddenly however, a strange red flash over by Qrow caught my attention. The boy was waving his arm, calling the four others in our group towards a pulsating crimson ellipse that hung in the air beside him. “Let’s go! C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” I heard him shout. Tai, Val, Gretchen and I all headed full tilt towards the strange phenomenon. Tai reached it first, hesitating for a split second before Qrow shoved him into the shimmering shape. My teammate disappeared, and a crazy thought occurred to me to explain his disappearance—The glowing ellipsis was a rift. A portal, presumably opened by Raven herself up at street level. As if to confirm my wild theory, I saw Tai waving at us to hurry from the hole in the grate above. Good enough for me.

Val and Gretchen both dove through the gateway, which had begun to flicker, as if its connection were weakening. I could hear the widower’s shriek behind me, so close I could almost smell the venom dripping from its quadruple fangs as they clacked together, hungry for revenge for the stroke I’d dealt it. Qrow leapt through the portal a split second before I followed, finding myself instantly bathed in mid-afternoon sunlight as I tripped over the boy at the base of the temple’s marble stairs. I rolled off of Qrow onto my back, in time to see the spider’s first four legs and armored thorax emerge from the threshold of the rift in hot pursuit. Before it could pull itself further, the portal dissipated with a strange, reverberating hum, and the widower was sundered in two by our collapsing escape route. Its screeching hiss died to a pathetic, wheezing whisper and each of its legs twitched disgustingly before the half-corpse of the monster evaporated on the breeze.

I looked around. Raven was doubled over, sweat beading on her face at the strain of holding what I could only assume had been her semblance for so long. Beside her stood two girls I didn’t recognize, to one of whom I presumed the hand that had caught Raven belonged.

“Well, that was fun,” Val said as he pulled Qrow and then me to our feet. No sooner had he spoken, however, then a new sound shook the ground around us. I recognized instantly the thunderous, trumpeting roars made by only one type of creature… Goliaths. The whole herd of the elephant-like monsters about which Raven and Qrow had warned us appeared just then, crashing right through what remained of the walls surrounding the circular temple grounds as if the brick and mortar were naught but paper.

“What the—COME _ON_!” Tai shouted. “Can’t we get a break for like five seconds?”

“Get inside the temple!” I yelled in response. Pushing Qrow ahead of me, I sprinted up three steps at a time to reach the towering building to our front. The seven pillars beneath us in the reservoir were continued here, forming the main support structure of what must’ve once been a beautiful building. I didn’t have time to marvel, however, as the eight of us sprinted past the massive pillars and through the tall but narrow doorway in the interior rotunda-like temple. The single room was plain and bare, any extravagant decorations probably having been stripped by looters centuries before. Around the interior floorspace, however, were about twenty-five short stone pedestals. Upon each, there sat what appeared to be just a collection of random items. The broken blade of an ancient sword, a compass, an old map, all sorts of junk.

“What the heck is all this?” Qrow wondered aloud. Before anyone could answer, the entire building shook from the impact of a charging goliath.

“Who cares!? Just grab something, stupid!” Raven shouted at her brother.

I didn’t wait to see what he took, instead turning and reaching for the broken sword blade on the pedestal nearest me. Showing our ‘relic’ to Tai, my partner nodded, and I drew Scourge. Reaching back with my other hand, I placed the blade against small of my back, which clanked securely into place against the vacant mag-plate as more and more powerful impacts began to cause stone to crumble from high over our heads. The temple didn’t have long, that much was clear. “Back door!” Gretchen shouted, with the compass I’d seen on another pillar swinging by a chain about her neck as he turned to run. We dashed out into the open just as the temple began to implode, the dome falling straight down and the buttressed colonnade collapsing in on itself. A massive cloud of dust arose from the obliterated stone as thousands of tons of masonry punched through the temple grounds, crumbling down into the reservoir beneath. I stopped to look but scrambled immediately back around to continue my dead sprint when I saw the goliaths that had brought the building down burst through the haze barely fifty meters behind us.

“Keep going!” I shouted. Even I could hear the panic in my voice. Each member of the group leapt over the wall easily… Except for one of the two girls we’d encountered just outside the temple, who simply phased right through it at a dead sprint as if it weren’t even there. While the ability was seriously cool, I didn’t have time to admire it. The wall exploded outward behind us as we continued to run and the armored skulls of the goliaths came charging through. I got my first ever good look over my shoulder at one of the creatures just then, a monster I’d only seen defeated once in a grainy scroll-vid taken of my father during his defense of the town we’d lived in at the time. The beasts looked harmless enough from a distance, to be sure. From this close, however, they were truly terrifying. Ten meters tall at least, covered in armored plate and a hide tougher than your typical grimm, they towered over us as we ran as fast as we could away. Their powerful legs didn’t even have to churn that hard to keep pace, however, with each stride of theirs making up for twenty of ours.

“We’re not gonna make it!” Qrow shouted to me as we turned onto a broad main street.

“Shut up! We’ll make it!” I shot back. The last thing I needed right then was some of that trademark Branwen negativity. I caught sight of other initiates, some in pairs, others in groups of four or six, that had made it to the city and were approaching the temple. I waved them off, but I think it was more the sight of what pursued us that caused them to scatter, rather than my insistent shouts to run. Chancing a look back, I realized that some of the goliaths had gone charging through what remained of the ruined buildings after other students. Only three were still doggedly thundering down the street after my group, braying and trumpeting in a terrifying cacophony that seemed to reverberate through our very bones.

The city certainly seemed a lot smaller from the surface. That was probably because we were getting the full tour at a dead sprint for our lives, making a bee-line for the border rather than silently and slowly picking our way through the subterranean labyrinth beneath our feet. It actually wasn’t long before we caught sight of the gorge on the western city limits, barely a kilometer out from the crest of the rise we’d just topped. “Almost there!” Tai called.

“You have a weird definition of ‘almost’,” Raven shouted in response.

“Get into the ruins!” Gretchen ordered. “Run along the tops of them, might slow the big guys down a little if they gotta chase us through all that!” Leaping off the road and up to the top of the nearby line of ancient storefronts, Gretchen continued her sprint with sword held in a back-handed grip. The other seven of us followed suit, striking out over and through old walls and shattered colonnades, across pancaked rooftop tiling and leaping completely over cross streets in our mad dash. It worked. The goliaths didn’t hesitate to begin trampling through the ruins after us, but definitely began to fall behind as they expended their momentum smashing through whatever stood in their way.

As we continued on, two of the grimm that followed us broke off their pursuit. I saw them turn off and begin pulverizing nearby ruins in what could only be described as a temper-tantrum. The largest, however, wasn’t going to give up that easily. As if realizing that bumbling through the ruins was the reason we were now outpacing it, the beast turned sharply and made its way back out to the street. The one-grimm stampede again gained momentum, with the monster now running parallel to our course along the open main street. Now it was our turn to be slowed by our path, the precise leaping and perfectly balanced sprinting along crumbling roofs and palisades taking its toll on each of us. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my pulse thudded in my neck with only two hundred meters to go. The goliath had overtaken us, reaching the chasm’s edge and slamming into the massive hewn boulders that made up the outer wall to arrest its inertia before turning on to an intercept course along the perimeter road. I could see the bridge directly ahead of us. We just had to reach it before the grimm. It was going to be close.

One-hundred meters, with the grimm out one-hundred and fifty. I was breathing hard, my lungs burning with the effort. Fifty meters, the goliath reaching seventy-five. I felt my pace faltering, but willed myself to push on out of desperation. We reached the bridge with the goliath barely ten meters behind us and began to dash across. A thunderous crash and the screech of rending iron caused me to look back. The goliath had smashed right through one side of the once-great archway. Its right tusk became caught in the great heavy chain that still held aloft the stone drawbridge’s massive counterweight, wrenching it free of the shackle and pulley system.  The chain whipped taught as the beast reared to free itself, finally ripping the enormous iron gear to which it was anchored off of its axis and slinging it through the air towards us. “Get down!” I shouted, just in time as the piece of the ancient winch system sailed right past where Tai’s head had been before he’d thrown himself to the deck.

We all scrambled to our feet as the bridge shuddered and sheared, the main underlying supports to which that pulley had been slaved now compromised and beginning to collapse underneath the massive weight of the twenty-ton grimm that thundered forward as it resumed its charge after us. Even so, as the goliath gained speed it looked as though both us and the massive monster would make it to the other side before the bridge completely crumbled. “Gretchen!” I shouted. “Break it! Break the bridge!” Gretchen nodded, stopping to plant herself before the oncoming beast and raising Quake high over her head. She roared with the effort as she brought the blade down and pulled its trigger, breaking the gravity loop. A directed wave of powerful gravimetric energy surged forward from the small crater where the blade had impacted, strong enough even to stop the goliath in its tracks… Just before the hewn blocks beneath its feet gave way and it fell, its trumpeting roar echoing down the chasm as it fell to its death on the rocks below.

With every main support of the bridge now completely sundered, our half began to tilt back, cantilevered too far past the reinforced supports of the opposite-bank abutments. The stone span began to rip itself apart at the broken end, the cascade of unsupported rock nipping at Gretchen’s heels as she scrambled up the rapidly steepening slope of the doomed crossing. If I didn’t act quickly, she would soon be falling into the gorge below with about a hundred tons of granite right on top of her. I did the only thing I could: I gripped the penultimate section of Scourge’s braid between the emitters with my right hand and flicked the trigger to extend the whip out to its fullest length with my left. Releasing the grip and taking hold of a lower section of braid, I swung the chassis of my weapon like a life ring before pivoting mid-stride and sending it flying towards her. She caught it, and I spun again to yank her back over my shoulder, focusing all of my aura into the muscles of my back and arms to heave her to safety.

The desperate move worked, but the effort it took caused my grip to slip and one of the vicious barbs to badly lacerate my now unshielded palm as I completed the motion and Gretchen sailed over my head. The sudden, sharp pain caused me to wince and release my grasp… At exactly the wrong moment. Val caught Gretchen’s hand as she reached the precipice, and I saw her straining to hang on to Scourge with her other hand and save me also. I tried in vain to regrip the braid but the flow of slick blood from the injury caused my grip to falter. The last thing I remembered before the memory went dark was the sight of my group watching helplessly as I plummeted down, down, down into the gorge. The sound of Gretchen’s mortified voice screaming my name echoed after me, just before I hit the water back-first. The sharp pain of the impact drove every ounce of air from my lungs and I blacked out, sinking quickly beneath the surface of the deep, rapid river.

**~ ~ ~ ~ ~**

I woke suddenly, flicking my right wrist to extend Thorn and reaching to the small of my back for Scourge. Neither weapon was where it was supposed to be. I panicked and sat bolt upright, expecting to see grimm surrounding me as I sat defenseless and ready to be devoured. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down Summer. You’re fine,” a nearby female voice insisted. “We’re good, we’re back at the school.” I blinked, eyes adjusting to the white light of the room I found myself in. My armor and cloak were hung up neatly across from me, with Scourge and Thorn resting beside them on a desk. I was in a hospital gown, sitting in an infirmary bed, an oxygen mask over my face and a bandage over my right hand. My breathing slowed back down and I turned to the source of the voice.

Gretchen. She smiled, wiping away a tear as she leaned over my bedside to hug me. “Ow,” I winced as her embrace hit a tender spot on my shoulder. I was sore all over, I realized, and taking a second look I saw deep purple contusions all up and down my arms and legs, as well as noticed the presence of a bandage over my head. I must’ve been hurt worse than I’d thought. “Uff… Hang on.” I closed my eyes and focused, and as I opened them I saw the deep crimson energy of my aura ripple across my body. “That should help.”

“Sorry,” Gretch grinned sheepishly as she pulled away. “We thought we’d lost you. Looks like you hit just about every rock in that river. Transport fished you out in the shallows about a kilometer downstream, pumped the water out of your lungs. They said your heart’d stopped.”

“Figures,” I replied as I pulled the mask from my face and took a breath of normal air. “Bet yours would too, if you performed a perfect a backflop from that high.”

“Hey, it was a perfect ten on my scorecard. Atlesian judge probably would’ve given you a six, but y’know how they are.”

“Hm. Yeah, I know how they are.”

“You guys do know I’m Atlesian by birth, right?” Gretchen and I turned towards the door to see Tai standing in the threshold. “Thought you were gonna miss the team selection ceremony, hotshot,” he said as he stepped into my room to stand beside my bed.

“I still might, blondie,” I smiled at my teammate and lay back on my pillow.

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Tai waved dismissively, before his face straightened and he looked at me with mock suspicion. “Unless… Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re already planning some more heroics in an effort to get yourself nearly killed _again_. That’d be, what, the fourth time today? Fifth? They don’t give medals for that, you know.”

“Maybe they’ll make one. Call it the Rose award,” I replied, my attempt at a chuckle silenced by a sharp pain in my diaphragm. “Uggh. Ow.”

“Yeah, but you’ll get it possumlessly if you ain’t careful,” Tai said with a grin.

“Poss—I think the word you’re looking for is ‘posthumously’, bud,” Gretchen said, rolling her eyes. Tai simply shrugged.

“Whatever. Close enough. I’ll go tell the rest of the guys you’re alright. Get better. Like, right now.” Tai said with a grin, turning to leave and almost bumping straight into Professor Ozpin and his cup of cocoa as the latter turned the corner. “Whoa! Watch where you’re… Oh… Ahhh ha ha ha, sorry, sir!”

“Quite alright, Mr. Xiao Long,” the headmaster replied calmly. “Now, the naming of teams will commence in about an hour. Would the two of you mind if Ms. Rose and I had a moment to speak beforehand?”

“Of course, sir. We’ll go wait in the lobby,” Gretchen said as she stood up, nodding respectfully and elbowing Tai on her way out the door.

“Uhh… Yeah. Yessir. No problem. See you later, Summer,” Tai waved awkwardly as he and Gretchen vacated the room and set off down the hall, out of sight.

Professor Ozpin closed the door behind him and sat down in an armchair across the room from me. As he so often did, he took a sip from his mug before speaking. “You truly are your father’s child, do you know that, Ms. Rose?”

“I… I think so, sir. I mean, right? I never knew my mom, so I should pretty much just be my dad’s little ‘mini-me’, right? I mean, except, I’m a girl so…” I shut up after I realized I was rambling.

“Indeed,” the professor said after a minute. “But I don’t think you realize to what extent. Your father nearly died on his initiation mission too. I was his partner. He saved my life, albeit,” he paused to chuckle warmly, “I only needed saving once, as compared to your saving your groupmate’s lives multiple times throughout the initiation challenge. Needless to say, you passed.”

“I had my life saved a few times, too, Professor.”

“Oh, I am aware. Your team will be one I will watch with great interest, as two of its members appear selfless to a fault in combat. Needless to say, both you and your group all passed the initiation challenge,” Professor Ozpin said with a nod as he took another sip of cocoa.

“Well, that’s good to hear. I think.”

“It certainly should be. On that note I must caution you, though. Remember our conversation yesterday, Ms. Rose. Your lineage, the Silver-Eyed warriors. Your kind barely exist in this world any more for a reason. A single, fatal flaw. You are all selfless to a fault. Not a Silver-Eyes has lived that didn’t become a hero in their own right. And you all have a tendency to die as heroes.”

“Selflessness is a flaw?” I asked, incredulously wondering what he meant.

“Of course not. To the point of sacrificing one’s own life even, is not a flaw in any definition of the word. What I meant by that is that adversaries of the Silver-Eyes, ones that truly understand what you are and what you are capable of, can and will use that.”

“But I have no adversaries here, Sir. You said so yourself, yesterday.”

“And that may be true. But… Well, at any rate you are likely have many adversaries if you go long in this profession.” I got the distinct feeling that the headmaster had wanted to say something just then and didn’t, as if something was bothering him but he perhaps thought it not my place to know. He stood, just as the thought crossed my mind. “What you must remember at all times is something that I know your father would’ve taught you about complacency. Be on your guard at all times.”

“Complacency kills,” I said reflectively, remembering how often that phrase had passed my father’s lips as I’d grown up.

“Indeed. Especially in this line of work.” The headmaster glanced at a pocket watch he pulled from the black waistcoat beneath his jacket and sighed. “This is another one of those conversations that really ought to have been tabled for when I had more than a few moments to speak with you. Now however, just as yesterday, I am out of time. I must head over to the auditorium and prepare to officiate the ceremony. This year will be a bit… different. Given that the goliaths your group managed to get the attention of completely destroyed the temple, all of the relics were lost in the rubble save the four your group recovered. Plans had to change, and we are certainly not going to make all of you re do your initiation.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I sighed.

“Indeed. Although, there is now the small matter of relocating the objective of the initiation challenge for when it is to take place in that sector of the kingdom with future classes. We can’t very well send first-years to scout a city bordered by a now un-crossable gorge with the ultimate goal of digging through a hole in the ground to find their relics. Thankfully, my archaeological team recently found a shrine towards the northern end of the forest that should serve well enough. Now,” the professor smiled, taking yet another sip from his mug and looking back up to me. “Please, do join us if you feel up to it. The forming of teams is always a very special event. Adieu, Ms. Rose.” The professor gave a curt bow and turned smartly, exiting the door and disappearing down the hallway the same direction my friends had gone.

I checked the time on my scroll, which had been set beside my bed while I’d been out. The ceremony was to be at nine in the evening, and my lock screen read just after eight. “Well, let’s just have a look here at the damage,” I said aloud to no one in particular. Disengaging the rail on one side of the bed, I swung my legs over the edge and my pink, fluffy hospital socks hit the floor. It took me a try or two to stand, a powerful headache causing me to lose balance a few times. I focused, drawing some extra aura up to my head and breathing a sigh of relief as the pain abated momentarily. I took a few steps over to the nearby mirror and unwrapped the bandage from about my forehead, wincing as I removed the last, bloodiest part of the wrap from the wound beneath. It wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting. There was what had probably been a nasty gash across my temple there, but my aura and the medical attention I’d received had clearly been working to heal it. My skin was a touch more pallid than normal, but other than that, I looked fine. Even my bruises had begun to fade since I had regained consciousness and my aura had again begun to flow across and through my body, slowly restoring it both inside and out.

Removing the bandage from my hand revealed just how bad my own weapon had damaged it. There were stitches running from the base of my index finger clear to the heel of my palm. Even with aura, that was not a scar that was likely to go away anytime soon, if ever. Looking over to my gear, I took a few shaky steps towards the armor stand before deciding, hardheadedly, that I was fine. I changed gingerly, easing into my armor and draping my cloak back about my shoulders. “Better,” I said with a grin at my reflection, the young huntress who smiled back at me looking more like she was really still trying to convince herself of that fact.

The desk nurse smiled and waved at me as I walked out. Apparently, I was free to go. In the waiting room, I rejoined Tai, Val, and Gretchen. Even the two girls with whom we’d made our escape were there, and Raven and Qrow too, despite the female half of the Branwen duo looking rather jaded. That was normal for her, though, so I didn’t dwell on it. Surprisingly, Raven was actually the first to speak.

“I was wondering if you’d ever come to. Now at least we can finally get out of here.” Still grumpy. Got it, I thought to myself. Good to know where the near-death experiences of allies fell in her priorities.

“Good to see you too,” I said simply, matching her dry tone.

“Hmph,” Raven mumbled quietly and shrugged, folding her arms across her chest as she did.

“Hey, don’t think we really got introduced while we were… y’know, running for our lives. I’m Natalia. Most people just call me Talia though.” The girl reached out and took my hand to shake, and began to squeeze firmly, but a stab of pain caused me to pull back.

“Ah, ow. Sorry, gimpy hand,” I said apologetically for having to deny the courteous greeting. I waved my hand, showing Olivia the stitches that ran across it.

“Oh, no sorry, that’s my fault,” she said, opting instead to bow like students do to their teachers in many Mistraline fighting arts. Her fist, armored across the knuckles with a crude-looking steel bolster, thudded powerfully into her other hand as she did, and I smiled as I returned the dramatic gesture as best I could given my injury. Natalia was about a head taller than me and built like a tank, with broad, muscular shoulders and beefy arms that came close to rivaling even Tai’s well-muscled physique. Her impressive musculature bulged from beneath the tight full-length sleeves of a nylon workout shirt that she wore cut off at the waist, showing off sculpted abs crossed by a loose shoulder bandolier of energy cartridges. Baggy black tactical pants held up by a thick leather belt and massive silver buckle with the motif of a roaring bear’s head ran loosely down to a pair of steel kneepads, of the same homemade-looking armor style as her knuckles and bracers. Black combat boots with crudely reinforced toes and shins, complete with home-welded hobnails in the toes fit the tank-like initial impression I’d had of her to a T. Her hair was shaved down to a very high military fade, the graduated fuzz on the side of her head giving way past a hard part to deep brown hair with a single wave of silver-platinum running through it. Despite her ‘butch’ appearance, she was very pretty, with a proud, high cheek boned face and brilliant amber eyes that smiled good-naturedly down at me as we both stood straight after I returned her bow.

The other of the two girls was right behind Talia, though I almost thought she’d walked off or gone somewhere else before the gigantic girl turned and moved to stand beside Gretchen. This second girl was dwarfed by the former, more petite even than I. Her face was elfish and delicate, with piercing green eyes that seemed to betray whip-smart intellect as she nodded courteously and introduced herself. “I’m Lilith Lawcere,” She said simply and softly. “That was an incredibly brave thing you did, back on the bridge. Whatever team you end up with will be lucky to have you.”

“Thank you, Lilith. You and Talia must’ve battled pretty hard to make it all the way to the temple alone. All six of us barely made it.”

“There were a few good fights, but nothing like what it sounds like you guys went through. Grimm widowers are a rare sight, and a very dangerous one at that. And we didn’t run into nearly as many alphas as your group did.”

“Just rotten luck, I guess,” I replied. I noticed Qrow look down as I said that, but I didn’t think anything of it.

“So, you’re feeling a bit better? Gonna make it to the ceremony?” Tai asked hopefully.

“I’m good. Had worse… Okay that’s a lie, but my aura’s got it. I wouldn’t miss this.”

“Well, let’s get out of here, then. We’re on the complete opposite side of campus from the auditorium,” Gretchen said as she turned to leave. I followed right behind her, as Qrow fell into step beside me and Raven trailed, predictably, well behind the rest of the group as we filed out of the infirmary doors. The younger Branwen twin didn’t say a word for a while. Finally, however, he broke the quiet just as I started to pick up my pace to walk beside Gretchen.

“Hey, Pe—Summer. Listen. I’m… I’m sorry, okay? About what all got said yesterday, about trying to get you involved in that little scheme.”

I slowed back down, returning the remorseful look he was giving me with mock disinterest. “You know, it’s gonna take a little more than killing a few grimm and an apology to get me to forgive that.”

“Figured. You and Raven are similar like that.”

“I thought you were apologizing.”

“I am, I am. Don’t take that the wrong way.”

“Is there a right way to take it?” I asked with a roll of my eyes.

“Look, I’m just saying, both of you take a while to trust people. I don’t think she even fully trusts me. I wouldn’t.”

I was actually genuinely surprised by that statement, but tried not to let it show in my response. “You two seem pretty tight to me.”

“I can tell you’re an only child.”

“Meaning?”

“Just ‘cos we’re twins doesn’t mean a damn thing. We only stick together because either of us are all the other has ever had since we were really, really young.”

“That why you seem to take all your cues from her?”

“Do not!” Qrow said indignantly.

“Not gonna argue it. Just think about it.” I didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t trust people that easily because it wasn’t the grimm that killed my mom when I was still a baby. It was people. My dad saved me that night. Raised me to always be cautious. That’s why it was weird that I started to trust you so quick after you helped me up yesterday. The way you stood up for me, I mean, even though you got swatted away pretty quick, it was noble. That same afternoon, I don’t think I could’ve felt more betrayed, honestly. Finding out that you and Raven think like common thieves when you’re together, and then hearing her justification for that and seeing you just sit there and accept it... Made me start thinking that I was right not to trust anyone.”

Qrow frowned, but did seem to think about what I’d said for a minute. “You’re right. You shouldn’t trust anyone,” he said when he finally spoke. “Least of all, me. Raven and I have had each other and no one else since our father died. Maybe I do let Raven do the planning, sometimes. There’s a reason for that. Maybe what she says can rub people the wrong way. I wanted to apologize for me, not for her.”

“What makes you think you need to apologize at all?” Qrow and I both turned to see Raven only about a meter behind us, having silently picked up her pace to match ours.

“You don’t need to be part of this conversation, Raven,” Qrow grumbled at his sister.

“Oh, I disagree. Because it sounds to me like you’re a bit confused, brother.”

“About what?” Qrow said, his face morphing into a scowl.

“About who we are. We don’t apologize, we don’t go outside our own for _support_ or to make _friends._ ” Raven had spat those two words out with utter disgust. “Yet here I see you begging for forgiveness from some girl who has no idea what real struggle is.”

“She almost died for her friend a few hours ago, Raven. You were wrong about her.”

“I’m also right here, and can fend for myself,” I said, raising my hand to signal Qrow that it was my turn to speak. “I don’t know what your problem is, Raven. Where all this anger comes from. You’re right, I probably don’t know struggle like you do. Sounds like you and Qrow had it pretty rough, but I don’t care. Whatever you experienced, gives you no right to judge anyone because of how much _better_ you suffered. And _you_ called _me_ out for having some kind of imaginary superiority complex yesterday? Maybe take a look in the mirror, sometime. Maybe, just _maybe_ , you’ll find the person you’re looking to blame for how much your life sucked staring right back at you.”

Raven’s eyes widened, then narrowed with rage at my suggestion. Her hand dropped to the hilt of her sword and she planted her feet as if preparing to strike. I extended Thorn’s grip and the fingers of my right hand curled around the grip, my left hand going immediately to the small of my back to prepare to draw Scourge in response. There was murderous intent written all over Raven’s features as she hissed, “How… _DARE_ you—”

“Ladies, ladies. There’s no need for this right now.” Moments before Raven and I probably would’ve drawn on each other, Tai stepped between us, putting a hand on both of our shoulders. Raven jerked away, seething and glaring at the unwanted intermediary.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart,” Tai replied coolly. “Now, am I gonna have to keep you kids separated until the teams get named up? It’s like the headmaster said yesterday; I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chance to spar through the school year. No need to be killing each other now.”

Raven continued her venomous stare at the two of us, before spinning on her heel and turning away, beelining for the auditorium that was now just across the commons from the group. “I’ll go talk to her,” Qrow said, turning and hurrying after his sister.

“Lot of good that’ll do,” I mumbled after him. Taking a breath, I relaxed and retracted Thorn’s grip back to my gauntlet once again. “Thanks,” I said to Tai.

“Hope you two aren’t going to end up being a problem.”

“I won’t be if she won’t.” I looked off in the direction the Branwen twins had gone. I could see them arguing, silhouetted against the ambient light from the hololamps and pathway lighting all around the open area.

“Come on. Let’s move, got only a few minutes till the ceremony kicks off,” Gretchen said with a smile. We followed the Branwen twins right up to the doors of the auditorium, turning sharply left after seeing both of them head right upon crossing the threshold.

I settled into the crowd between Lilith and Gretchen. The latter of the two was standing on her tip-toes, scanning the crowd. “What’re you looking for?” I asked her after a moment.

“Team HNTR. Hazel texted me. Said they’re near the front… And there he is!” Gretchen started waving and jumping excitedly next to me, and I looked across the crowd in the direction she was facing. The fourth-year I saw waving back was probably the biggest human being I’d ever seen. Easily seven feet tall with a build to match, his bulk occupied a massive area towards the front of the auditorium. He had the same fawn-colored hair and tan complexion as Gretchen, and an encouraging and infectious smile that his sister returned spread across his chiseled features as I saw Professor Ozpin walking up to the podium.

The headmaster cleared his throat into the mic, sending a hush over the crowd, before pushing his odd little glasses up higher onto the bridge of his nose and speaking. “Students. Today, as happens every year, a new cohort of young future warriors will join your ranks as students of this prestigious academy. The initiation challenge was issued, as it was for each of you when you first arrived, and was met in accordance with the highest standards of this school. As I’m sure many of you may have heard already, things did not quite go as planned. The grimm are an unpredictable force, as all of you know, and the new group of first years intermingled throughout this room were forced to contend with many, many more of the beasts than had been anticipated. Every student who made it out of that forest alive has, and this I can assure you, earned his or her place here. The relics were of little consequence, and though Professor McCollough was devastated with the news,” Professor Ozpin paused as the upperclassmen all laughed amongst themselves at the joke before continuing, “The temple at which many of you retrieved your own relics was destroyed before more than four pairs of students could retrieve theirs.

“That being said, the organization of teams was handled a bit differently this year. Micro-drone footage of every pair that formed has been analyzed and Doctor Hargrave and myself grouped those pairs into teams based on their performance on the mission. The four teams that managed to retrieve relics, however, were assigned their teams the traditional way. Those two teams will be announced last.”

I saw Hazel look back at his sister, who shrugged. “Guess that means us,” she said, turning to look at me. “What do you think the team name is gonna be? Let’s see, S.T.G.V? No, that doesn’t work. S.G.V.T? Nope. S.T.V.G? Nope…”

“Why do all those start with ‘S’? I’m not gonna be a team lead.”

“‘Course you will. Who else would they pick? Tai? Dang near broke his ankle. Val? He already told me he didn’t want to lead a team.”

“You!”

“Nuh-uh. No way,” Gretchen laughed.

“Why not? I almost died… like, a lot. You didn’t.”

“I did too almost die. But you saved my life first, which is exactly why you’re gonna be team lead!” My friend insisted. “It’s like the headmaster told you after we left back in the infirmary. Selfless to a fault, exactly what they’re looking for in a leader!”

“I mean, I guess—Wait. You and Tai were listening just on the other side of the door, weren’t you?”

“Uhh… he he… Yeah. Yeah, we were. What did the headmaster mean by ‘Silver-Eyes’?”

I didn’t know how to respond. That conversation wasn’t supposed to leave that room. “I’ll… I’ll tell you later. Don’t say anything about it. To anyone, understand?”

Gretchen looked at me confusedly for a moment before nodding and grinning. “I gotcha. Not gonna say a thing.” Gretch drew her fingers across her mouth like she was closing a zipper, then crossed her heart with one hand while raising the other in a solemn oath.

Several teams had been called already by this point, and Gretchen and I stopped our conversation to watch. TQSE, CBLT, CMSN, among others I was sure I’d never remember until actually sparring with them. I was more interested in the various weapons the students carried. I saw battle-axes, glaives, a bo staff, some girl even had blades built into her greaves and gauntlets. Finally, however, Gretchen elbowed me to get me to focus. The headmaster had paused, and was staring right at me.

“Now,” Professor Ozpin said after a moment, breaking eye contact with me and again looking out over the student body. “These final two teams are the only two that made it all the way to the ancient temple, and against commendable odds, retrieved the relics which were to be the original objectives of this initiation mission. Without further ado: Gretchen Rainart, Lilith Lawcere, Manfred Adler Dietrich Valkyrie, and Natalia Kashirina.” Val’s full name said aloud drew a laugh from the crowd, but Gretchen and I only stared at each other before Lilith nudged her and Talia began to pull her up towards the stage. I watched the four of them go, then turned my devastated look up to the podium. Ozpin had been watching for my reaction, giving me a reassuring nod before stepping over to shake hands with every member of the new team. Amidst the applause, he continued, “The four of you retrieved a map and a compass, each being items that are of limited use on their own, but together can help you find your way home. From this day forward, you will work together to find your way to the top of the monument on graduation day as Team GLDN, led by Gretchen Rainart.” More applause, led by the thunderous clapping of Gretchen’s brother, Hazel, filled the auditorium before the newly minted team GLDN filed off the stage and back down into the crowd.

Ozpin cleared his throat one final time before speaking once again. “And for our final team assignment of the night, Summer Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, Raven Branwen, and Qrow Branwen. The four of you retrieved both the broken blade and matching hilt of a great-war-era sword. While not as intricate or devastating a weapon as might be found today, for thousands of years a warrior’s ability to use that simple tool effectively was his or her whole measure as a person. You each wield armaments far more clever and deadly than this sword, but it will be how you learn to use your relationships with each other that will define you as a team.” I didn’t want to move. Tai had to grab me by the elbow and drag me the first few steps before my legs started moving robotically towards the stage. I saw Raven and Qrow approach from the opposite side, with Raven never once breaking her scowl in my direction as the four of us made our ways up opposite sides of the platform.

“From this day forward, the four of you will be known as Team STRQ, led by Summer Rose.” I almost didn’t hear the headmaster’s words. Not because of the applause that filled the air as it had for team GLDN. I knew I’d just been made a team leader. I knew my team name and who was on it… It just didn’t seem real. “Congratulations, young lady,” Professor Ozpin said as he stood in front of me. I shook his hand, returning his encouraging smile with a look of confusion and despair.

“How? How am I going to lead them?” I tilted my head in the direction of the Branwens.

“You’ll find a way. Your father always did,” the professor said conciliatorily before moving on to shake the hands of Tai, Qrow, and Raven.

“Oh, boy,” I sighed as applause continued to echo about the room and my new team filed off together.

 


	8. Like what you see?

**Chapter 8: “Like what you see?”**

“Room 416, guys. Just got the text with room assignments.” I flashed the message in Tai and Qrow’s direction as the four of us made our way to the dormitory alongside team GLDN.

“You guys are in 416? Of what, building three?” Gretchen asked, leaning over to see the text and compare it to the one she’d received on her own scroll. I did likewise, noticing that GLDN had been assigned to room 417, making them our across-the-hall neighbors and suitemates. At least they would be close by, I thought.

“What’d the boss-man say your name was, man?” I looked over my shoulder to see Qrow extend a hand to Tai, who took it and shook.

“Tai. You? Qrow, right?”

“That’s me.”

“You’re the kid that got stuck in that second-year’s gum yesterday, aren’t you?” Tai asked with a wry grin.

“Son of a… Did anyone _not_ see that? That’s like the fifth time I’ve been asked.”

“Mmm, probably not. There was a pretty serious crowd.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Damn. Something tells me I’m not going to live that down for a while.”

“Try ever,” I inserted, casting a smile back at the boys despite my generally crappy mood.

Tai, along with every member of team GLDN shared the laugh at Qrow’s expense. He glowered at me for a moment before sighing and lacing his fingers confidently behind his head. “Go ahead. Laugh it up while you can. Just wait till sparring class, ain’t nobody got moves like me.”

“Confident, huh? I’m thinkin’ I got a twenty-card here says you can’t back that up.”

“Against you? Oh, you’re on,” Qrow grinned back.

“I’m in,” Talia said, waving her hand. “I got twenty on Tai.”

“I’ll match. Twenty on Tai,” Val chimed in.

“Wow. Anyone else?” Qrow asked the rest of the group. “I’d love to take your money. Anyone? No? Raven?” Qrow’s sister scowled wordlessly back at him. “Alright. Don’t have to split the take then.”

“Hm. Take, he says,” Tai grinned. “What’s twenty divided three ways? Like six lien and change? Worth it to take you down a peg.”

“Bring it on, blondie,” Qrow replied evenly.

Gretchen and I shook our heads at the impromptu gambling ring that seemed to be forming between our teams. “Anyone happen to check that code of conduct the Dean sent about that kind of stuff?”

“Psh. We ain’t gonna get caught,” Tai laughed.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna say I didn’t get around to reading it yet,” Qrow agreed with a shrug as we passed beneath a stone archway between two lecture halls and caught our first glimpse of the student quarters beyond.

The dormitory building to which my scroll directed us was a massive four-story building a few rows back from the arch. We entered a doorway with the words ‘Building Three: Western Stairwell’ engraved above it, and a quick jaunt up the four flights of stairs took us to a long hallway that seemed to run the length of the building. At intervals, secondary hallways leading to individual two-room suites branched off from the main one, each with a set of numbers to the left of their entrances. The eight of us set off down the hall, eventually turning into suite number eight and reaching rooms 416 and 417. Gretchen and I each scanned our scrolls on the electronic locks simultaneously, with both issuing an electronic whirr as the deadbolt retracted and the doors clicked open. I noticed that our door had already been fitted with a small placard that read ‘STRQ’ as I held it for my team. Tai and Qrow entered, flipping on the lights to reveal the rather tight living space. Raven didn’t bother to break the threshold, however, and simply flung her old backpack around the corner and onto the bed furthest to the right. With that, she spun, making not so much as a moment of direct eye contact with anyone before she stormed back off the way we’d all just come.

Qrow watched her leave, and I looked at him, fully expecting that he’d go racing off after his sister. He noticed my glance and shrugged. “Hey, I’m tired. If she wants to go sulk then that’s on her, I’m going to bed.” With that, he flopped back onto the third of the four narrow beds, next to the one Raven had claimed. “Ohhhohohoohhh… I’m going to like it here,” he grinned, seeming to marvel at the softness of his mattress. Pulling his flask out from his hidden shirt pocket again, he undid the cap and tilted it back as he craned his head to the side and up. Nothing flowed from the opening, and the boy seemed to remember then with a scowl that Raven had dumped his booze back in Ancient Vale. “Damn. Hope they have something worth drinking around this place,” he grumbled, the flask clattering against the wall and across the floor of the room as he tossed it grumpily away.

I looked back towards Gretchen, who’d lingered in the hallway as I had. She gave me a reassuring look, before shrugging. “You’ll do fine. Raven’ll come around, I’m sure.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” I said, smiling unconvincingly. “Well. Goodnight, I guess.”

“Night. Thanks for… Y’know. Not letting me fall to my death.”

“No problem. Thanks for hanging on to Scourge for me. I’d’ve hated to have to rebuild it from scratch.”

“No problem,” Gretchen acknowledged with a grin, before turning into her room and disappearing behind the door as it closed. I lingered for a moment more, sighed, and did the same.

“Classes start at nine tomorrow, guys. I’m setting an alarm.” Tai nodded as I turned away from the door and took a step into the room. Qrow didn’t say anything, sprawled across his mattress face-down and already beginning to breathe slowly, rhythmically as sleep began to take him. “Hey. Hey, Qrow. Qrow!” No response. I scooped his flask off the floor where it had come to rest and threw it at him.

“Mmmmh… hmm?” The boy mumbled in response to the clanking metal against the headboard of his bed. “Classes at nine. Got it,” he said drowsily and waved a dispassionate ‘thumbs-up’ before his arm slumped back down over the side of his bed and he began to snore softly.

I dug into my bag and retrieved my pajamas and a towel, turning back towards the door to see Tai leaning over our teammate. He waved a hand in front of the Qrow’s face, checking for any reaction as if to confirm that he was really out cold. I watched confusedly for a moment but didn’t say anything. Seemingly satisfied that Qrow was fast asleep, Tai tiptoed over to the locker marked ‘Q. Branwen’, swinging the door open and regarding the five full sets of uniform slacks and coats that hung within. Stealing a glance at me, then to Qrow, then back to me again, he grinned mischievously.

“What?” I asked. Tai held a finger to his lips, nodding his head over at Qrow.

“Do you have any extra skirts in yours?” He whispered after he took a moment to ensure Qrow didn’t stir. Tai pointed at the small door across the room that bore a placard reading ‘S. Rose’.

I turned and opened the closet, realizing then that my own allotted five uniform sets were hanging neatly within. I turned back to Tai and whispered back, “Why do you need one of my skirts?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he shot back quietly.

“I am worrying about it, but here,” I said with a shrug, and handed him one of the plaid, thigh-length garments.

“Actually, lemme get two. We gotta make this believable.” I rolled my eyes and handed him the second skirt.

“Whatever you got planned, it better not be weird.” I watched as Tai hung one of the skirts in his own locker, and the other in Qrow’s.

“So you’ve got three, now. I’ve got one…” I heard Tai mumble to himself as he pointed to my locker, then to his, seeming to figure something quickly in his head before reaching into Raven’s locker and stealing two of her skirts as well. Nodding to himself, he hung those two alongside the one of mine in Qrow’s locker. Next, he took every pair of trousers from his own and Qrow’s lockers, folded them, and stashed them in the bedside drawer between his bed and mine.

“Ok,” I whispered. “Are you ever gonna tell me what the heck you’re up to?”

“Just play along tomorrow. I’m gonna try and convince him that they’re kilts.”

“What makes you think he’s really that dumb?”

“Heard him flirting with Lilith back in the waiting room while you were still out. Think he told her he’s from Anima. Nomad tribe, sounded like. If that ain’t a lie, I betcha he hasn’t ever even _seen_ a uniform before, much less worn one. It’ll work.”

I rolled my eyes, both at the plan and at the apparent fact that Qrow was already making passes at classmates. “Whatever. Guess we’ll see.” I again grabbed my fuzzy flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top and headed out the door to grab a shower before bed. The end of another long day, I thought as I made my way to the suite’s large co-ed bathroom adjacent the common area and kitchenette. A cursory glance at the plate-glass mirror revealed that none of my wounds seemed particularly grievous anymore, the gash on my hand still the worst of those but well on the way to recovery.

Raven hadn’t returned by the time I got back to the room. I didn’t care. Like her brother had said, if she wanted to sulk, that was on her. I certainly wouldn’t be the one to complain about her absence. Without so much as another thought about my recalcitrant teammate, I pulled back the covers on the bed furthest from where her pack lay and climbed in, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

An electronic whirring echoed in my mind some time later, as though it were far away but impossibly close by at the same time. I felt the miasma of deep sleep begin to lift in response, and my mind cleared enough to recognize the sound as belonging to the lock on our room’s door. Irritated at having been woken from such wonderful sound slumber, I cracked one eye to determine who the intruder was. At first, the only thing I could make out in the darkness of the room was the light on the mechanical lock of the door as it flashed from red to green. The handle turned after an awkward moment and the door swung slowly open. I regained full consciousness and my eyes adjusted to the gloom just in time to remember that I’d gone to sleep before my teammate had returned. Raven must finally have gotten back, I thought annoyedly, and her entry had woken me. Sighing at the prospect of chasing down a few more hours of good sleep before the first day of classes on her account, I adjusted my head on my pillow and closed the eye I’d opened as the door stopped its swing and hung ajar.

I heard the urgent whisper of an unfamiliar voice moments later. It wasn’t Raven, and I couldn’t make out what it’d said. Both of my eyes fluttered open this time, and I looked to see the door still stuck wide open. Two figures were standing in the hallway beyond, peering in at me. They were naught but silhouettes, pitch black against the dark of the wall behind them, but something seemed strangely familiar about the one who quickly ushered the other away from my line of sight and down the hall leading out of the suite. Weird.

I pulled back my covers and swung my legs out of bed. Who else beside Raven would have access to our room? The boys were out cold and snoring softly, and Raven’s bed was still empty. Could the two figures have taken her scroll? Unlikely. Why would they? First-years don’t have that many clearance codes downloaded as yet. If the intruders had wanted to get somewhere important, they should’ve gone after a senior’s scroll. Or better yet, one belonging to a staff member. And why would they come here first? The uncertain line of thinking bounced around in my head as I peered down the hall in the direction the two figures had gone. Nothing. Curiosity overwhelmed my desire to go back to sleep and I headed out of the suite, into the main hallway and down towards the near western stairway. Again, I began to hear voices, echoing out from the landing just beyond the doorway ahead of me. By tone and pitch I thought that perhaps the owners of those voices may have been female, but even that was only barely distinguishable. The only thing I could tell with any certainty was that the back and forth they were having was both urgent and intense.

Whoever they were, I wanted to get closer than my position just inside the fourth-floor hallway. I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments and felt the familiar, comforting tingle of my semblance activating as I turned myself invisible, confirmed moments later when my eyes opened and I could only just see the outline of my hands and arms glowing an iridescent crimson in the dim of the hallway. Peering ever-so-cautiously around the corner, I managed finally to catch sight of one of the two figures. The large, pyramidal skylight above the winding square stairwell cast the pale glow of the stars down in a diffuse beam of illumination, allowing me the first clear-ish look I’d been able to get of one of the intruders. She was tall, armored, and I thought quite pretty, though I couldn’t really make out details in this light. She was nervously stroking a spiraling, waist-length ponytail that spilled over her shoulder, locked in conversation with the anonymous other who stood a bit further down the stairs and still out of sight.

Keeping close to the wall, I crept slowly down to the right, taking the flight of stairs to the first landing. From there, I made my way silently up to the banister, knowing that I’d be in a better position here to see the second individual to whom the tall girl was urgently speaking. Strangely enough, I still couldn’t make out what either was saying despite being barely five meters from them. Through the small slits between the stone pillars of the hewn railing, I could see brief glimpses of the other figure, but it wasn’t until I peeked over the handrail that I got my first good look at her. I didn’t get to look for long, though. My eyes swept once up and down the vague form, noting her short black skirt, asymmetrical black armor, and tattered white cloak that were all startlingly similar to the gear I typically wore. She appeared to be a little older than I, perhaps by a few years anyway, her hair a foot or so longer and pulled back over her ears into a loose ponytail. As my gaze settled on the girl’s shadowed face, however, I realized that she was staring right back at me. I checked my arms again, noting the aural glow that confirmed I was still invisible. Looking back, I saw that the girl was looking me up and down in the same way I’d just done to her as I stood. That should’ve been impossible. The tall girl, the one I’d been able to see from the top of the stairs, turned when her companion’s line of sight shifted in my direction, but searched the wall behind me in vain as she tried to find what the second girl was now staring at.

A tense but extremely brief moment passed before the second girl uttered a single, urgent phrase to her companion. I still couldn’t tell with any clarity what had been said, but the imperative galvanized her perplexed confidant to follow her swiftly down the stairs. The sudden sprint took me off guard, and I nearly tripped down the stairs as I tried to give chase.

“Hey, come back here!” I shouted. The two mysterious figures couldn’t have been up to any good, if they were running like that. My bare feet thumped down the tile stairs as I desperately tried to gain ground on the fleeing girls. Looking down to avoid losing my footing in the dark, I realized that it almost looked like my feet were running backwards up the stairs with every step I took down towards the ground floor. I shook my head, chalking the strange sight up to tiredness and the dim light playing upon the pattern of the tiled stone steps, and continued on. Upon reaching the first-floor landing, I threw open the door to the vestibule just as it swung closed from the second girl’s exit and emerged into the moonlit night. The two strange intruders were gone without a trace. White rose-petals danced in the night breeze before me, but beyond that, the night was still and silent. After a moment of scanning the surrounding area with no results, I turned to head defeatedly back into the dormitory and to bed. Before I could spin completely back towards the door, I realized something just seemed… off. Realizing what it was caused me to do a double-take and look back out upon a sight that filled me with confusion.

I hadn’t emerged in the thoroughfare that ran along the western edge of the student quarters like I should have. Instead, the worn stone walls that now surrounded me were those of the old courtyard where I’d first met Professor Ozpin. The snarled old oak and the statue of King Zoroaster stood just as they had the morning before last. The statue’s eyes still bored into mine, as piercing as plasma drills. Strange. I could’ve sworn I’d come out exactly the same door I’d entered earlier that evening alongside team GLDN after the ceremony. Was there another entrance nearby or…?

My bewilderment was cut short when a sound like the crumbling of stone began to echo around the courtyard, breaking the surreal silence that had pervaded the air moments before. The origin of the noise eluded me for a moment as I looked around, but movement from the direction of the monument drew my attention. Cracks had appeared in the solid marble base of the statue, expanding and radiating outward through the concentrically lain pavers as I watched. From those fissures there bubbled an odious and black treacly ooze, the same strange, evil substance I’d seen regenerate the giant widower back in Ancient Vale. Very quickly, a pool formed around the memorial as the closest pavers disintegrated and sank beneath the burbling tide. Even the statue itself began to sink, slipping beneath the dark surface more and more quickly as what had been a small puddle grew unsettlingly large within the span of mere moments.

I tried to turn and run back inside when I realized that more and more of the courtyard was being completely swallowed up, thinking perhaps I’d be safe indoors. When I spun, however, the only thing that stopped my face from slamming into the wall was the grasping hand I’d extended to take hold of a door handle that was no longer there. The door was completely gone, replaced by the featureless old stone of this section of the original dormitory building. Desperately, I pressed against the unyielding hewn blocks. Nothing. Turning back around, fear gripped me as I realized that the dark fluid was now lapping at the edge of the raised stone border of the space, utterly trapping me against a flood that filled the entire courtyard. To make matters worse, the stone block upon which I stood split right between my feet and began to sink with me still on it.

There was nowhere to go. Scourge was not on my back, nor Thorn on my wrist to help me affect an escape. Another sudden shift as my purchase settled and sank further caused my foot to slip into the poisonous sludge and become stuck. I couldn’t pull it out, with every effort simply pulling me further in. Pretty soon, I was up to my ankles, and then to my knees in the inescapable horror. I saw the old statue make its final plunge, tilting back as it did. King Zoroaster’s extended hand and crown were the last things to slip beneath the glassy-smooth surface of the pool before all went quiet for a brief moment. Seconds later, right at the spot the monument had just descended into, the mire began to roil violently. That boiling disturbance spread in waves that rippled and splashed at my thighs as I sank ever deeper, before a shape, terrible and huge, burst from the abyss with a screeching roar of unimaginable magnitude.

The same pure, liquid darkness in which I was now firmly trapped began to slide from the creature’s shape, exposing the immediately recognizable bony skull plate of a grimm, this one belonging however to a creature dozens of times the size of any I’d ever encountered. Six glaring, red-yellow eyes stared at me from deep within that crested head as the monster clawed its way free, revealing first its long neck, followed by massive prehensile wings. The hopelessness that gripped me at my predicament only multiplied when gazing into the scorching focus of the monster’s gaze. Paralyzed with fear, I almost didn’t notice when my mouth and nose reached the level of the black tide and I slipped beneath the surface. The all-encompassing blackness of the pool was the last thing I saw before I began to slip out of consciousness. The impenetrable void closed in about me, and my last thoughts were a racing, jumbled mess of confusion and terror the like of which I’d never before experienced.

When I came to, Tai was shaking my shoulder. I was trembling, and my eyes darted nervously in all directions. I was back in my room. Morning light was filtering around the edges of the curtain. Qrow was standing there too, looking worriedly down on me.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. You good? Think you just had a nightmare or something. You’re fine.”

My frenetic glances about the room ceased and my gaze settled on my teammate’s concerned face. I stared hard into Tai’s eyes as he knelt beside my bed, trying to decide he was real. Convinced after a tense moment that he was, I patted the wrist of the hand that gripped my shoulder in a thankful gesture and sat up. “I’m good. I’m good.” My sheets were soaked with sweat and wrapped awkwardly about my legs, but for the most part my affirmation held true.

“You sure? You were thrashing around pretty hard for a minute there,” Qrow said.

“I’m fine. Really. Just had the craziest dream or… Nightmare, or something. I don’t really know.”

“What was it about?”

“I…” I thought for a moment, realizing quickly that I could recall absolutely none of what I’d just dreamt. Only general feelings—curiosity, fear, despair—but nothing at all beyond that. “I don’t remember.”

Tai and Qrow shared a fleeting look of concern. “You shouted at somebody to ‘Come back here’,” Tai said, trying to jog my memory. “That’s what woke me up. You’d gone invisible, too.”

“Yeah,” Qrow agreed. “It was pretty weird seeing your sheets getting kicked around with nobody in ‘em. Then you popped back into view and Tai woke you up.”

I shrugged. “It was just a stupid dream.”

“Alright. If you’re sure,” Tai said, clearly still not convinced.

“I’m sure.” Reaching over to my nightstand, I retrieved my scroll. “What the—It’s eight-forty?”

“Yeah, so?” Qrow shrugged.

My legs swung out from beneath my covers and I stood, grabbing my scroll from the nightstand and leaping over Tai’s bed. Throwing open the eastward-facing window’s curtain, the room flooded with bright morning sunshine. The boys both squinted and grumbled their displeasure at the sudden flash, but I ignored the glare and checked the alarm app on my scroll. A small notification that read ‘Missed Alarm- 8:00’ flashed across the top of the screen. “Crap. Guys, get dressed. Like _now._ ”

“Why? What’s the rush?” Qrow asked with a shrug.

“I told you last night! Classes start at nine, dummy!”

Someone knocked on our door just then, and I bolted over and flung it open. Gretchen was standing there with Lilith and Natalia, with Val close behind. “You guys aren’t ready yet?” Gretch asked in disbelief.

“No! I just woke up! My alarm didn’t go off for some reason.”

“Eeesh. Well, better hurry up. We’re gonna head out. It’s ‘Combat Application Lab 1’ first thing for us.”

“Yeah, us too,” I answered. “We’ll be there. Don’t wait up,” I said as I let the door close and bolted over to my closet. I hated waking up and not even getting the time brush my teeth, but this was going to be one of those mornings, it seemed, whether I liked it or not.

“The heck is all this?” I heard Qrow’s confused grumble from across the room as I pulled a uniform set from its hangar and slammed my locker door.

“Uniforms. Put one on, dummy,” Tai shot back. I turned in time to see Qrow withdraw a men’s sportscoat and one of the skirts Tai had placed in his locker, eyeing the ensemble dubiously. I’d almost forgotten the prank Tai had cooked up. There was no way this was gonna work.

“Where are the pants?” Qrow asked.

“It’s a kilt. I got one too, look.” Tai grabbed my extra skirt from his closet, holding it up for Qrow to see.

“A what?”

“A kilt. Highland tribesmen here in Sanas wear ‘em. That’s where I’m from, up in the mountains to the east of here. Believe it or not, they’re great for hiking and fighting. Real breezy around your—”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” I interjected.

Tai shot me a mischievous grin. “As you wish.” To my surprise, Qrow actually nodded after a moment.

“I… I guess. I mean… It looks a little small.”

“Oh, you’ll fit, bean-pole,” Tai said flippantly.

Qrow began to undo his trousers. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing?” I exclaimed.

“What? I’m wearing underwear!”

“Dunno how you nomadic types do it out in Anima, but pretty much everywhere I’ve lived guys don’t drop their pants in the presence of a lady,” Tai chided.

“City people are weird,” Qrow grumbled with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“I’ll head to the bathroom and change,” I said with a sigh as I stepped out of the room. The door shut behind me and I sighed. This whole co-ed room thing was going to take some getting used to, for sure. It only took me a minute or two to change, and I quickly brushed my hair back into order from the wild night’s sleep before trotting back to the room and knocking. “You guys ready?”

“We’re good!” I heard Tai’s shout. He was very clearly trying hard not to laugh.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside, nearly bursting out into uncontrollable laughter myself. “What?” Qrow asked, noticing the grin I was trying to stifle. The ‘kilt’ he was wearing barely reached mid-thigh on his lanky frame. Tai was wearing one as well, visibly trying to suck in his muscular core to avoid tearing through the borrowed garment.

“Nothing. You two look good. It’s a lot better than that little cape-thing you wear.”

“It’s a cloak!” Qrow exclaimed defensively.

“No, this is a cloak,” I said, pulling my long white hooded cloak about my shoulders and tightening the clasp beneath my family’s ‘burning rose’ emblem. “I honestly dunno what that is,” I said, nodding to the short crimson cape that lay across the footboard of Qrow’s bed.

“We can argue style later,” Tai said, chuckling. “Don’t we gotta get out of here?”

“Yeah. We gotta get across campus to the building next to the auditorium. That’s where the sparring class is at.”

“Let’s go then,” Tai called with a wave over his shoulder as Qrow and I followed him out the door.

“Any idea where Raven is?” I asked the younger Branwen twin as we headed down towards the stairwell.

“Nope. I’m sure she’ll turn up. Don’t worry about her.”

“Believe me, she’s the last person I’d worry about. It just won’t look good on the team if we have someone not show up on the first day of class.”

“Crap. You guys go ahead,” Tai said from in front of us, just as he reached the top landing of the stairwell. “I forgot my books.” I caught the wink he threw me as he turned on his heel and sprinted back towards our suite.

“Should we wait for him?” Qrow asked.

“No. Let’s get out of here.” I waved for Qrow to follow and sprinted down the stairs, two at a time. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu as I hurried down the tile steps, but I really had no idea why.

The commons were completely empty on our way to the lecture hall. My scroll showed the time as 9:01. We’d be late, but if we hurried, it wouldn’t be that bad. Hopefully Professor Hargrave was in a forgiving mood. I flung the doors to the large, stadium-shaped building open and banked a hard right up the stairs in the open, curved outer lobby, with Qrow close behind. I could hear the dean’s deep, rumbling voice echoing out of an open doorway from the second-floor walkway onto which we’d ascended. As we approached, I caught sight of Gretchen and the rest of GLDN seated at the highest row of seats, right by the door. Our eyes met and she waved me in, holding a finger to her lips to indicate that we should enter as quietly as possible.

I edged around the corner of the doorway, trying to slip in unnoticed, finding to my pleasant surprise a section of empty seats at the top row just across the access aisle from GLDN. Just as I slid to a seat, thinking we’d made it without a problem, I realized Hargrave had stopped speaking, and was staring straight at me. Crap. Busted.

“Ah. So good of you to join us, Miss Rose. I’d wondered when the rest of STRQ would show up.”

I stood, tentatively and ashamedly. “I… Uh… I’m sorry, Sir. It won’t happen again.” Silently, I wondered what the professor had meant when he’d said ‘the rest’ of my team. Scanning the other students, my eyes finally settled on Raven, far in the opposite corner. She must’ve somehow gotten a copy of our class schedule. I sure hadn’t told her. Her glare in my direction made it clear she was still rather pissed about the team selection of the night prior, but the angry stare softened moments later when her gaze shifted over to her brother, who’s slid to a seat beside me.

“See that it doesn’t, team leader. And, Mr. Branwen,” Hargrave boomed as I sat down.

“Uh… Yes?” Qrow replied.

“Stand up,” I whispered from the bench seating next to him. Qrow grumbled and stood.

“Mr. Branwen, might I suggest you take a closer look at school uniform regulations before returning to class tomorrow?”

“Whaddayou… Uh… Mean…?” Qrow’s voice trailed off as he looked about the students on the stadium seats around us. All eyes were turning to him. Giggles and murmurs were beginning to echo about the space. Across the aisle, Val finally burst into unrestrained laughter, just as Tai appeared in the doorway, having changed into his black uniform slacks when he’d gone back to the room for his ‘books’.

Down on the stage, a burly young huntsman, probably about ten years removed from senior year and sporting a short black moustache and neatly parted black hair seemed to be fighting to restrain himself. He whispered something to professor Hargrave from his position beside the former headmaster, before turning on his heel and pushing through one of the doors to the men’s locker room. At that moment, his restraint seemed to fail him and I could hear his booming laughter echoing from the room he’d retreated into. More laughs began to break out around the room as our classmates all turned to see what was causing the commotion.

“What? What’s everyone laughing at!?” Qrow shouted, before his eyes settled on Tai. Our teammate leaned, self-satisfaction written all over his smug features, against the doorway.

“Nice skirt, dude,” the blonde boy said casually, before breaking into his own fit of laughter and leaning over to high-five Val.

“I… But didn’t you say it was…”

“I can’t believe you fell for that!” Tai exclaimed, laughing so hard he collapsed and began literally rolling on the floor by our seats.

Qrow’s face turned red, first with embarrassment, then with anger. To my surprise, however, he didn’t launch himself at Tai for some good old-fashioned vengeance. His features calmed as he took a breath, and though I couldn’t understand for the life of me why, he then began to laugh as well.

“Heh.” Qrow shrugged as he walked over to Tai, who hadn’t pulled himself off the floor yet. “Guess you just really wanted to see me in a skirt, huh? Well,” as he spoke, Qrow brought his right leg up and planted his heel onto the top step of the aisleway, right by Tai’s head. Tai, wiping tears out of his eyes from his gleeful outburst, looked up from the floor… straight up Qrow’s skirt. “Like what you see?” Qrow began to laugh even harder as Tai shut his eyes and began to fumble awkwardly away.

“Awwwh! Dude! What the heck!” Tai stood, shaking his head like he was trying to purge some mental image from his mind. “I’m never gonna un-see that, now.”

“If you didn’t wanna see it, you shouldn’t’ve tricked me. Hope you took a good long look.”

“There’s somethin’ loose in that brain of yours,” Tai grumbled as he got to his feet.

“Gentlemen. Please. Take your seats. Class has been interrupted long enough, thanks to your… Theatrics.” Professor Hargrave’s projected voice seemed to shake the room, and though he spoke calmly, Tai and Qrow immediately stepped down to the first row of seats and plopped down beside me, nervously nodding their assent.

“Now. Where were we, before team STRQ thought it best to interrupt our learning experience?” The rhetorical question was followed up by another glare in our direction by the professor. I swallowed and sank a little further in my seat.

“Symon. Please. Does it not seem that you’re being a little too hard on them?” The new voice came from the opposite doorway to the one we’d entered. I looked, already aware by the calm, measured cadence of the voice that Professor Ozpin had decided to pay the class a visit. “I believe we can simply chalk their tardiness up to bad luck, and let it go at that.” The headmaster glanced past me, directly at Qrow for a split second, and I could’ve sworn I heard my teammate gasp softly under his breath.

“You may be right, Oz,” Professor Hargrave said. “I’m only trying to make it clear that it won’t be tolerated _in my classroom_.” I couldn’t help but notice the older huntsman had emphasized the last part of that sentence quite pointedly. When Professor Ozpin didn’t react, however, I thought perhaps I’d only imagined some animosity where in fact there was none. “Now. Students, since our headmaster has decided to pay us a visit on your first day of classes, I think this would be an excellent opportunity for some of you to show us exactly what you already know. Two volunteers. Now.”

Several students looked from one to another confusedly. I heard one girl near me quietly ask her teammate, “Wait, does he mean spar? Right now?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Hargrave said, responding to the girl with his rumbling voice. The fact that he’d been able to hear her murmur the question from all the way down there was intriguing, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it before I noticed movement in my periphery. Qrow and Tai and both stood straight up, hands rocketing skyward in unison.

“We’ll go, sir!” Tai shouted down to the professor.

“Heck yeah. Let’s do it,” Qrow added gamely.

“Hmmph. You boys certainly seem determined to hog the limelight. Very well. Get down here. I hope you brought your weapons.”

“Always,” Tai grinned, grabbing the grips of his collapsed tonfas and releasing them from the mag plates strapped to his thighs outside his trousers. A jaunt down to the lowest seating level and a quick flip over the rail took him down to the base of the fighting stage, where he turned and waited for Qrow. My dark-haired teammate smiled coolly in kind and opted to walk calmly around to the side of the stadium-seating to the stairwell that was recessed into the wall there.

“Hey, nice legs, killer!” Natalia called, followed by a whistle from Gretchen. Qrow waved up at them, and I couldn’t help but notice him wink at Lilith. So, it was true. He had been flirting with her.

Qrow turned back to his opponent as he made it to the bottom of the steps. “Gotta say, this thing is a little freeing. Like you said, Tai. I bet it’s real comfortable to fight in,” Qrow remarked as he strode a bit too confidently to where our teammate expectantly stood.

“Looks great on you. Really brings out your eyes.”

Qrow feigned bashfulness at the sarcastic compliment. “You really think so?”

“No.”

A ripple of laughter at the boys’ back and forth was silenced with a wave from Professor Hargrave. “Alright, gentlemen. Opposite ends of my fighting stage. Assume your stances.”

“Hey Tai,” Qrow shot over as the two of them made their ways onto the tiled platform.

“What?”

“Don’t take this beating too serious. Just good business, far as I’m concerned.”

“I love kicking the cockiness outta guys like you. Don’t worry, though. Just so long as you’re not a sore loser, we’ll be good.”

“If you two are done…” Hargrave grumbled from just off the stage.

“Ready when you are, Sir. Call it,” Tai said, extending his tonfas and crouching like a blonde tiger readying a pounce.

“I’m good,” Qrow said with a dismissive wave. He took no stance. He didn’t draw Harbinger. He just stood there. I looked over at Raven as the mumbles of confusion could be heard all about the room. She was smiling, utterly relaxed. Apparently, this wasn’t out of the norm for her brother. My eyes turned with great interest to the stage, eager to see which of my teammates was really the better fighter.

“Fighters ready… FIGHT.” Tai exploded towards Qrow the very millisecond Professor Hargrave’s hand lowered and his command boomed around the room. Qrow didn’t so much as twitch as his opponent hurtled towards him…

What the heck is he thinking?

 


	9. Nightmares

**Chapter 9: Nightmares**

“You must’ve been feeling pretty terrible right about now,” Pyrrha observed, indicating the dour scowl that had been set across my face since the moment I’d set off towards the dorms following the team-naming ceremony. The two of us were walking right amongst the members of the newly minted teams STRQ and GLDN, listening as team members got to know each other and Tai made his bet with Qrow.

“Hm. What gave it away?” I asked rhetorically in response. “Oh, but you’re right of course. I wasn’t ready to trust either Raven or Qrow quite yet at that point, and I guess I was just still really bummed out about not ending up on a team with Gretchen.”

“I imagine I’d have felt the same,” Pyrrha said, nodding. “Hey,” she added, looking around at the surrounding buildings as the eight teenagers pushed through the old western stairwell doors into our residence hall. “You guys lived in the same building as us.”

“Yep. Same floor, too. Three suites down from you guys. I actually went to go check out my old room back when you all were getting settled in last year. Bunch of stupid-looking boys in heavy armor had it.”

“CRDL.” Pyrrha said without hesitation, as if even my vague description was still more than enough to identify the knuckleheads that I’d seen occupying room 416 a few months prior. “There’s a little roof above that suite. For maintenance or something, judging by all the piping. It’s where Jaune and I… Used to…” Pyrrha stopped, her voice trailing off as a distant look washed across her face.

I watched Pyrrha carefully. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes at the recollection. Only moments later, however, she regained focus and blinked them back. Impressive, I thought to myself. For the briefest of moments, I’d felt her fond memories of training with Jaune on that roof tugging at the corners of my own mind, vying for control over the veil. Almost as soon as I noticed the feeling though, it abated. It seemed like a lot to hope, but perhaps my companion was beginning to understand how to control her thoughts here in the beyond.

Just then, Raven stormed back down the hall past where we had paused.  “I suppose neither of you are all that happy with the situation.”

“Definitely not. That was the only consolation, really, knowing that she hated getting stuck on a team with me as much as I did her.” Pyrrha and I headed down the hall to the old suite and watched the doors of rooms 416 and 417 close after Gretchen and I bid each other goodnight. “Let’s just jump ahead till morning,” I suggested at that point. “The first day of classes was… A bit of an adventure, let’s just say.”

“Alright,” Pyrrha said with a grin at my cryptic statement about our first academic day. I shut my eyes and concentrated. The scene darkened, leaving only a dim outline of the hallway and doors as the mundane pre-bedtime routine sped by. I knew the reach of my own memory would fade as soon as I nodded off and the scene shown by the veil would skip straight to morning. “It’s strange when you fall asleep in these memories,” Pyrrha remarked, echoing my own thoughts on the matter. “Like hitting skip on a holovid, almost. Like when you fell from the bridge. We were up on the cliff as it collapsed, you fell, passed out, then then suddenly you and I were standing in the infirmary as you awoke.”

“Yeah. It took me a little while to figure out why that was. The Veil, the Beyond. Us. It’s memory, all of it. You can’t remember what you… Er… What you can’t remember...”

“Well uh… Well said,” Pyrrha said, smiling wryly.

“Yeahhhh… That sounded a lot better in my head,” I admitted. We both laughed, and I leaned up against team STRQ’s door at almost the exact instant the veil went from dim to completely dark, the moment sleep must’ve found my younger self. Pyrrha and I stood in silence in the gloom for a few seconds before I realized something strange was happening.

“This is taking longer than usual,” Pyrrha pointed out from somewhere to my right. As if to punctuate what she’d said, a familiar electronic whirr echoed in the otherwise dead-silence of the still air of the hallway. I knew that sound. The deadbolt on the dorm door. I turned to look as our surroundings again were lit by moonlight filtering in through the windows in the common area at the end of the hall. The light on the door had flashed green… But why?

I was utterly perplexed for a moment before I realized something. “My scroll!” I said, reaching for the clip where I used to keep the device in life. It was still there, forever attached where it had been the instant I had died. “It must’ve gotten close enough to the lock to activate it when I leaned against the door… But I don’t, I mean, how could that be possible?”

“Memory,” Pyrrha said after a moment. “It’s… It’s as if your scroll remembers being able to unlock the lock, or vice-versa.”

“That… I mean, I guess that makes sense,” I replied, grabbing the handle on my door before the lock could re-engage. To my surprise, it turned, and I swung the door open slowly. I saw Qrow first, sprawled out in the exact same clothes he’d gone to sleep in, atop the covers he hadn’t bothered to pull back. Next, Tai lay peacefully on his back, snoring softly. Finally, the door opened the rest of the way and I saw myself, lying on my side and staring straight at the doorway. I’d never watched myself sleep before. It was a strange feeling, but that at that moment, that wasn’t bothering me much. The Veil seemed… Different. The images I could see were different. Hazy. Almost like a dream.

“What’s going on?” Pyrrha whispered urgently. “You’re asleep, aren’t you? We shouldn’t be able to see this.” There was no reason for her hushed tone, I thought. My sleeping younger self couldn’t hear her. Habit, born of her considerate nature, probably. I shrugged.

“No idea. Maybe it’s because…” Before I finished with my best-guess answer, I saw my own eyes snap open. Teenage me looked straight at current me, then over to Pyrrha, and then back to me again, brow furrowing and eyes narrowing with obvious confusion and suspicion. Pyrrha caught my eye movement and turned to me.

“I think… I think you can see us.”

“That’s impossible. How could I…” I looked again at my younger self, whose attention was fixated directly on my shadowed face. “You know… I think you’re right. We need to get out of here, Pyrrha.”

“Why? What could be wrong with—”

“Go. Now,” I guided my companion by her shoulder quickly down the hallway before taking the lead as we headed towards the stairs. The two of us trotted down a few flights of stone steps before I turned to face Pyrrha. “I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ve never interacted with myself before in my memories, and you’re right. I could definitely see us.”

“There’s got to be an explanation, Summer.”

“If there is, I sure don’t know it,” I replied, utterly perplexed.

Pyrrha began to stroke her ponytail nervously. “I wonder…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Wild theory.”

“Let’s hear it. I’m grasping at straws same as you.”

“It’s just that… What you said earlier. About the Beyond being a realm of memory, but that memory having no reach into our minds while we slept in life.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Well, there’s another unquantifiable thing that governs our minds while we sleep, in the same way memory does while we’re awake. Dreams.”

“Dreams? Dr—” My eyes widened as I looked away from Pyrrha, frenetic thoughts about the implications if she were right racing through my mind. That made too much sense. The image shown us by the veil here was of a completely different quality. Dimmer, duller colors that all tended towards gray around the periphery of my vision. Fuzzy shapes that should’ve appeared solid, like the railing, or the skylight above us. “I think you’re right. I think… I think we might’ve entered a whole different reality, Pyrrha. This isn’t the Beyond. Not what I’m used to, anyway.  This is some kind of… Dreamworld.”

            “And you’ve never experienced this before?”

“No. As long as I’ve been here, no.” Suddenly, movement caught my eye at the bannister that bordered the stairs opposite the stairwell from me. A crimson glow, surrounding a ghostly-white figure. “What in the…”

“What?” Pyrrha’s eyes snapped to where I was looking, but just searched for several seconds like she just couldn’t see the girl who I watched stand slowly and begin looking me up and down. “What do you see?”

“Me,” I answered as softly as I could, as my younger self made direct eye contact with me for the first time. The moment dragged on seemingly forever before I finally looked back to Pyrrha. “Run,” I commanded, the simple word enough to get her following close on my heels as I sprinted down flight after flight of stairs.

“Hey, come back here!” My teenage self called out after us.

Pyrrha and I didn’t slow down, each of us taking two steps at a time at a dead sprint to get away from my pursuing dream-self. As soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs, I pushed out into the cool night air and grabbed Pyrrha, concentrating as my aura flowed around us both. In a shower of flower petals, we disappeared, just as the doors flung open and the pajama-clad teenager that had followed us burst from the dormitory. Young Summer searched the quiet, empty school grounds, quite unaware that Pyrrha and I were standing but a few meters from her. Fortunately, though I could see her when she went invisible, she could not see me. I guess all those years of training paid off. “Hm. Rookie,” I murmured amusedly under my breath. As if convinced after a moment that we’d gotten away, my younger self turned to go back inside, but not before seeming to notice something strange and turning back towards the courtyard.

Courtyard.

Wait… What? The western stairwell was supposed to lead to the main thoroughfare off the commons… Why were we in the old memorial courtyard? “Something’s not right,” I whispered to Pyrrha.

“We’re not in the right place. But it’s… It’s just a dream, right? Since when do dreams make sense? Maybe this is what counts as normal,” Pyrrha murmured back.

As Pyrrha spoke, the old Zoroaster monument trembled and tilted. I did a double-take when I realized that not only was the statue beginning to sink into the ground, but it was being swallowed up by a noisome black fluid I’d become all-too-familiar with on my many journeys. A summoning pool. “There’s nothing normal about that, dream or not,” I replied, indicating the pool. It wasn’t just the statue that was beginning to sink… Within moments, the pool expanded to a size far larger than any I’d ever encountered out in the wilds. The whole courtyard was in danger of disappearing before long, paver by paver crumbling and sinking into oblivion at a disconcerting rate. My younger self seemed transfixed by the foul flood and didn’t move, but I pulled Pyrrha back towards the nearest archway.

“What about you?” Pyrrha asked in protest, indicating young Summer as she stood in imminent danger of falling into the enormous pool.

“It’ll be fine. It’s just a bad dream. It can’t actually hurt me.”

“Are you sure?” Pyrrha asked, concern written all over her features. At that moment, the eerie black tide began to lap against the raised stone border of the courtyard, upon which my younger self stood. The block of hewn granite that was my purchase cracked right between my feet, and I slipped, first one foot, then both becoming ensnared in the pool. There was nothing we could do, even if we tried.

I wasn’t sure, not at all. A lot of what had been happening since we’d accidentally unlocked this dream realm was beyond my understanding. Nonetheless, I held fast to Pyrrha’s arm, in case she was considering doing anything foolishly heroic. We both watched as I sank deeper and deeper, helpless to pull myself free. Nothing worked, no matter how desperately I tried… And that only made me try harder, sinking faster and faster as I did. That was until movement towards what would have been the center of the courtyard caught my eye. The surface of the expansive pool began to roil violently as some kind of enormous grimm began clawing to extricate itself from the summoning pool. Young Summer froze, quitting her efforts to escape and stared, horrified at the tremendous shape that hauled itself from the mire. I recognized it immediately as it emerged, as it seemed so did Pyrrha. I felt my companion tense and heard her dismayed and shocked gasp. Almost instinctually, I pulled her closer. It was the same tremendous, dragon-like creature that had been laying siege to Beacon Tower the night the academy fell… The night Pyrrha died. The fear I felt radiating from her aura now was the same I’d felt from her that night.

“What… Why is that thing here?” As if in answer to Pyrrha’s question, the dragon screeched, cocking its head to the side and glaring at the two of us with three unblinking orange eyes. It could definitely see us. I uncloaked to save energy, not knowing if I’d need it or not, and looked back momentarily to where my younger self had been seconds earlier. I was gone, completely submerged beneath the surface of the summoning pool. Hopefully the dream would end, and soon. The grimm pulled itself towards us with the two dexterous claws on its wings, crushing the granite masonry of the arch we’d retreated through with but a touch as it hauled its own massive bulk through the breezeway after us. More of the vile substance that filled the pool dripped from its body, eating through the pavers like acid and creating many smaller pools beneath its body and wings that bore forth dozens of lesser grimm within seconds.

“Get ready. We’re gonna have to fight, I said to Pyrrha, drawing Scourge and extending Thorn as I had done tens of thousands of times. It felt good to have weapons in hand once again, even if the creature we were facing was well beyond our ability to destroy. It gave me a modicum of comfort, anyway. When I looked over to my companion, expecting to see her bronze shield and transforming xiphos at the ready, my heart sank. Pyrrha hadn’t moved, paralyzed with fear, her weapons sheathed. “Pyrrha? Pyrrha! Pyrr—Oh, crap.” I’d taken my focus from our adversary for too long, only noticing the flaming ball of energy that had been building in the dragon’s maw when it was already too late. With a terrible, screeching roar, it released the blast of searing flame straight for the two insignificant human specs before it. I felt the heat—as in, actually felt it—the pain as real as any I’d felt when I’d been alive. But it was barely even momentary. The scene went black. I could feel myself floating in limbo for what could’ve been seconds, minutes, or hours before the ground beneath my feet again became solid. Shapes formed around me. My room, back at Beacon. Tai was shaking my younger self awake from the violent nightmare, with Qrow standing concernedly nearby.

We were back in the Beyond. The afterlife I knew, not that strange and terrible Dreamworld. I turned to Pyrrha, whose eyes darted back and forth, a fearful stare unable to focus on anything in particular. Tears streamed down her face. I couldn’t say I blamed her one bit, either. “Are you okay?” I asked, kneeling beside her. She said nothing. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence. I guided her chin with my hand, directing her eyes to look at mine. For an unnerving moment, Pyrrha seemed to look right through me, a thousand-yard stare I’d seen haunt the eyes of many experienced fighters whose fear had grown beyond their own ability to convey with normal expression. The moment of trauma passed, however, and her breathing slowed. Her eyes focused back on my face and I wiped her tears aside. “It’s alright. You’re safe. We’ll be alright, Pyrrha.”

“No.”

“We are. Trust me, we are. We’re back in my memories. We’re safe.”

“No. No one is safe from that… Thing. No one can kill it.”

I began to understand, then. Pyrrha had always acted so fearless in the face of overwhelming odds in the past, but something about that dragon… It got to her. Something so big, so terrible and strong… What could a single human warrior do to kill such a creature? “I don’t know about that,” I said, giving my best effort at a confident smile. “It’s never fought a Silver-Eye before.” I winked, willing a brief flicker of silvery light to flash from my irises.

“I… But what about Ruby? Didn’t she fight it, the night I… The night I died?”

“No. She never did. That dragon got one look at her power and, well, it shut down. It couldn’t move. It’s still frozen with fear at the top of the tower as far as I know. So, you see, there _is_ a way to stop it. It’s not hopeless.” I hoped I sounded much more confident than I felt on that note.

Pyrrha seemed to consider what I’d said for a moment, before sighing shakily. “I hope you’re right, Summer. I… Wait,” Pyrrha paused, looking past me. “Are Qrow and Tai… Wearing skirts?”

**~  ~  ~  ~  ~**

Qrow spun to his right at the very last possible moment as Tai shot past where our teammate had been standing, rolling out of the leap and kicking off the wall to re-direct his momentum back at Qrow. “C’mere!” The blonde boy cried, tonfas swinging to meet either side of Qrow’s head.

“Too slow,” Qrow replied evenly, slipping back to dodge the follow-up strike and backflipping easily away. Tai planted his feet and swung again and again, pressuring his way forward but ever just a fraction of a moment too late to tag Qrow with the weapons that were naught but golden blurs in his hands. It was an impressive display, but I could see Tai becoming incensed at his inability to land a hit.

“Get him, Tai!” I heard Val holler from the stands beside me.

“Stop running and fight, you dodgy little—” _CLANK!_ The weapon impact rang out through the auditorium as Qrow drew Harbinger and met Tai’s tonfas, both boys fighting to out-muscle the other as each returned his opponent’s glare. Tai’s look softened into amusement after a moment. “Finally. About time you quit messing around.”

“Didn’t want you to get too tired out with all that flailing around you’re doin’,” Qrow shot back. His finger tightened on the trigger of his weapon, and with a mechanical whirr the twin shotgun barrels of Harbinger rotated forward to inside Tai’s guard, leveling at his chest. “Sorry, but this ain’t gonna tickle,” Qrow warned as his finger tightened on his trigger.

Tai, aware of the danger, broke the standoff and backed up quickly, matching the angles of Harbinger’s shotgun barrels with the concussion guns on each short end of his tonfas perfectly. Both boys pulled their triggers simultaneously, and the pair of twin blasts met at point-blank range, spattering the area with spall as steel buckshot and heavy frangible slugs slammed into each other. Both Tai and Qrow’s auras rippled as they were peppered with hundreds of tiny impacts from their own and their opponent’s weapons. A shockwave from the violent blasts that met between the combatants hurled them both unceremoniously backwards, with only Qrow able to handspring neatly out of the explosion. Tai almost landed cleanly, but slipped, sprawling to the floor.

Qrow looked as if he’d been waiting for just exactly this moment, lunging forward to the offensive for the first time since the bout had started. Harbinger sailed through the air in a powerful downward strike that looked like it could’ve cloven a grimm in two. Tai fired his tonfa, the force enough to propel him on his butt back far enough to avoid the swing, which slammed into the floor just between his legs. “Whew. Close one,” Tai taunted, smiling as he kicked back once again to avoid the follow up attack. It almost looked as if Tai were breakdancing away from the rapid salvo of blows that Qrow fired off at his retreating opponent, kicking himself left then right and twisting around to narrowly dodge each strike. Now it was Qrow’s turn to become frustrated, his obvious annoyance only adding speed and intensity to his attacks as Tai continued to back up. I realized then that Tai had plenty of opportunity to get up, to evade far enough out to either side and stand, but he didn’t. He was baiting Qrow. What kind of strategy it was to let oneself get cornered against the wall of the fighting stage was beyond me, though.

“Gotcha!” Qrow finally cried as Tai had backed up as far as he could, now completely trapped against the hardened steel of the sparring stage’s wall. Harbinger’s blade sang through the air straight for Tai’s face as Qrow put all his weight behind the attack. At the last possible instant, however, Tai raised his tonfa, aligning them with his forearms and crossing them over his chest to stop the blow. The resounding metallic crash echoed around the room, and a cheer went up from the class. The blonde boy grinned, and Qrow scowled at the failed finishing move. “The heck’re you smilin’ about?” Qrow growled, clicking his trigger outward and angling his shotguns again.

“Gotcha,” Tai said from the floor. With that, Tai extended the hooked axe-blades from the ventral sides of his tonfa. Shooting one arm forward and twisting the other, he managed to capture both rear and leading edges of Harbinger, pulling his arms tightly outward as if they were a powerful clamp. Before Qrow could react, Tai hooked one heel around his opponent’s forward ankle and pinned it by planting his opposite heel against the black-haired boy’s shin. Qrow instinctively tried to yank Harbinger away from Tai’s weapons, but Tai was expecting the tug. In one movement, Tai torqued the captured blade of Qrow’s sword to the side and shoved the telescoping grip into his gut, effectively doubling the force of his opponent’s pull and sending him off-balance. Qrow stumbled backward, unable to catch his footing due to his trapped ankle and fell flat on his back, the wind driven out of him.

Tai flipped onto his feet and kicked off, firing one tonfa to propel him in a spin not unlike the way he’d done against the alpha creep during initiation. The other tonfa was already spinning, multiplying the impact force of his right arm as he drew it across his body. Inside a tenth of a second, Tai had twisted all the way around, and his tonfa met Qrow’s wrist with a _THWUMP_ that was audible all the way from the stands. Harbinger flew out of Qrow’s hand, clattering across the stage, and I winced. That looked like it hurt. Qrow’s aura flashed, a ripple of red energy radiating out from the point of impact, as I looked over at Raven. She stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd, the only one of our classmates not cheering either boy on. I couldn’t understand why she looked so seemingly disinterested even though the aura level projection on the wall behind the combatants showed her brother’s aura nearing the fifteen percent mark. Did she know something we didn’t, or did she really just not care?

Tai spun out of his leap, landing easily between Qrow and Curse as the former pulled himself from the ground. Qrow opened and closed the hand that had been struck, checking for pain or broken bones, wincing a little and massaging his wrist before smiling. “All that just to disarm me? S’alotta work for not much payoff.”

“Next time you won’t be so lucky,” Tai replied, readying his tonfas for a follow up attack on his weaponless foe.

“That’s the thing,” Qrow growled confidently as Tai sensed his opening and charged in once again, intent on finishing Qrow off. The backhanded tonfa strike flashed through the air for Qrow’s head… But never landed. To Tai’s—and everyone else’s—utter surprise, Qrow caught the blow with his injured hand. “I’m never that lucky.” Qrow’s opposite hand shot in close and grabbed Tai’s other wrist, immobilizing both tonfas, before hauling back and headbutting Tai straight in the nose. Tai’s golden aura flashed as it was overwhelmed by the sudden attack, and a stream of blood flowed from one of his nostrils as he roared in pain. Qrow didn’t let up, either. Letting go of Tai’s left arm, he planted a right uppercut straight into Tai’s chin, then spun around and slammed a left backfist into his opponent’s temple. All three hits drained Tai’s aura by massive amounts, more than you would think an unarmed assault possibly could. Tai staggered, his vision probably blurred from that last hit.

I heard the class collectively gasp at the sudden table-turning assault. “Don’t let him hit you like that, Tai!” Val shouted, as both boy’s auras had now reached to within a few points of the match cutoff.

Tai growled, gritting his teeth through the pain of the trio of powerful blows. Flipping one of his tonfa around and holding it by the long striking end, he again extended the axe-blade. As Qrow reached up to block the ensuing downward strike, however, Tai tossed away his other tonfa and reached right through Qrow’s now divided guard, grabbing him like a ragdoll by the collar and slinging him over his shoulder. Qrow hit the stage, head first, his grin evaporating. I imagined getting choke-slammed like that would take a smug smile off of even the most confident fighter’s face.

This was it. The next hit would decide the match… That was, if Professor Hargrave was indeed going by tournament rules. Both boy’s auras were at critical levels. The class was on their feet screaming at one or the other to end it. Tai set up for a ground-and-pound coup de grâce, hauling back with his right arm as his opponent stared defiantly up at him from the floor. As Tai’s bodyweight dropped to add power to the rapidly falling punch, Qrow surprised the audience once again, tilting his head only ever so slightly and allowing the punch to fall as he reached up and took hold of the back of Tai’s head. Qrow then brought his right knee up, pulling down on Tai and forcing the knee strike to thud into Tai’s head at the very same moment Tai’s fist glanced across Qrow’s temple. Gold and red flashed together as what remained of each boy’s auras crackled at the other’s finishing strikes.

Both holoscreens that displayed the boys’ aura levels flashed red at the exact same instant, indicating what would count as an aura-level elimination. A spinning red symbol appeared next to each name on the screens, before projecting a number. Tai was holding steady at nine percent of full-strength. Qrow, pulling himself to his feet, looked up and saw his own number before shooting a braggartly look at Tai. “Ha. Ten percent. Looks like you owe me a little money, Tai.” Mixed reactions from the class intermingled around me. Val and Talia’s voices could be heard expressing their dismay at the outcome. Understandable, considering they were each now out twenty lien. Some students cheered or whistled, but most murmured about how close the fight had been. I looked over at Raven once again, unsurprised to see her face betraying hardly a hint of emotion, except perhaps an ever-so-slight upward twitch at the corner of her lips that I wasn’t even sure I saw.

Tai hissed at the pain of his own touch, tenderly checking the kneecap-shaped bruise just above his right eye and wiping away some of the blood from his upper lip and chin with his sleeve. He threw a glance towards the scoreboards, saw the percent scores, and sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I guess you got me.”

Hargrave was already on the stage and striding towards the fighters as Qrow extended a hand to haul Tai to his feet. “Hm. Impressive, for first year students. Far from flawless, however. Mr. Xiao Long, your inability to focus your aura in the area of an impending strike nearly cost you the match earlier and resulted in you getting blood all over my stage. Mr. Branwen, waiting on lucky breaks like you did is going to get you killed one day, if you rely on your opponent making a fatal mistake before you do.”

“Worked out for me pretty good so far, mister,” Qrow said with a shrug.

“Irrelevant. Against a more competent opponent, you would be dead long before you perceived an opening in their technique that you could effectively exploit, especially with your apparently limited repertoire of predictable offensive techniques.”

 “Limited? Predicable? Seriously?” Qrow inquired annoyedly.

Hargrave scowled. “Did you not hear me, young man?”

“No, I did. I’m still waiting for you to explain it. I won the fight, didn’t I?”

“You both lost, as far as I am concerned.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“And it never will, not to you. Not until you realize that combat is not a game. Its purpose is not some primal expression of dominance, nor is it sport. Combat,” Hargrave thundered as he turned towards the class, “is simply a function of survival. If you can survive your engagements out in the real world, one at a time, you will be fulfilling your purpose as huntsmen and huntresses. One cannot hope to survive if he uses all of his energy against his first opponent, for the very next will surely be his end. For this reason, while in my classroom I expect to see you all working to master your efficiency in battle. Aura distribution, weapon use, energy management, semblance timing. All of these are aspects of true combat you will need should you ever manage to graduate.

“Moreover, I must iterate: survival and victory do not always go hand in hand. Knowing when to retreat is a discipline, not a weakness. No doubt each of you thinks that your minor abilities somehow make you superhuman, however this is patently false. You possess each of the exact same weaknesses as any person. You can bleed, you can die. I have seen too many young men and women come through those doors who thought they were invincible. Believe you me, they walked out again with just the opposite notion. And most of them are still alive, as far as I know. Now. Professor Ozpin, do you have anything you would like to add?”

The headmaster stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Regarding your philosophies on combat? No, Symon, I believe you covered it quite well, and I couldn’t agree more. Students, I urge you all to listen well to what Professor Hargrave has to say regarding this topic. It is for his vast knowledge in this arena that I urged him, begged him even, to stay on as Dean and head combat instructor when he resigned his position as headmaster and I took over.”

“Hmph. Liked my old office better.” The Dean stated gruffly, nodding his assent. “Still, times change. Your headmaster can keep the administrative responsibilities his office demands. Council meetings and bureaucracy are naught but a burden on this old Huntsman. In this classroom, I can forge each and every one of you into warriors. That is,” Hargrave added with a pointed look at Qrow, “Those of you that will listen.”

Qrow rolled his eyes and grumbled something, drawing an even sharper glance from our instructor. Hargrave didn’t fire back, however, apparently choosing to ignore the snide comment in favor of shooing the recalcitrant student and our other teammate back up into the stands. I breathed a sigh of relief at that. The last thing the team needed was for Qrow’s smartass attitude to land us all in hot water with the Dean.

“Now,” Ozpin continued after calmly watching the exchange, an amused smile playing across his face. “Yesterday, most of you were tested on your ability to make safe landfall from terminal velocity. Suffice it to say, many of your techniques left much to be desired. Given this academy’s preference for experiential over theoretical training, the remainder of this block of instruction will be spent at the Beacon cliffs.” A murmur arose from the class, some apprehensive about repeating the leap from the high plateau down into the grimm-infested forest below, some more than game to give the launch another go. “Are there any questions?” The headmaster inquired as we stood to head to the other side of campus.

“Yeah, Sir. Can I go change?” Qrow asked as he reached the bench where I was seated. Several of our classmates snickered. I found it hard to keep a straight face too, a mental image passing through my mind of Qrow’s skirt billowing up in the wind as he tumbled towards the ground.

“Mr. Branwen, I’m surprised,” Ozpin replied coolly with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Considering you and your sister opted not to participate in the launch during initiation, I would’ve thought you would be more eager to test that aspect of your abilities.”

“Wait, what?” I looked from Raven to Qrow as the latter sat down next to me. “What does he mean?” I whispered, noting the unease that spread across my teammate’s face.

“Why, it’s quite simple, Miss Rose. You were not team leader at the time, so of course this doesn’t reflect on team STRQ as a whole, but the Branwen twins left well before the official beginning of initiation yesterday morning, no doubt intending to get a head start on the challenge itself. It did them no good in the end, so Professor Hargrave and I decided not to take any disciplinary action. Now, if that will be all, please follow your instructor to the cliffs and…” The headmaster paused, grinning. “Happy landings, students.”

 


	10. Team Meeting

**Chapter 10:  Team Meeting**

“So, who’s bright idea was that?” For the first time since team STRQ had been formed, Qrow, Raven, Tai, and I were all in our room together. This initial team meeting was going about as well as I figured it would, too. Tai sat at the foot of his bed, and I beside him on a chair I’d dragged over from the desk while we both waited for Qrow to answer. Raven just gave a sort of half-laugh, half indignant huff as we grilled her brother, slipping in a pair of earbuds and laying back against her headboard. I knew better than to ask her.

“Why does it matter? We tried it, there were more grimm than we were expecting, we got held up, and we ended up showing up behind you guys anyway. You heard the headmaster, we’re not getting punished, so we’re good.”

“That’s not really the issue here, Qrow. My problem is that you guys think you can get away with stuff like that, and it’s gonna hurt us as a team eventually.”

From her bed in the corner, Raven mumbled, “Maybe if we’d been able to get our hands on the Dean’s tablet…”

“That’s past, Raven. I’m talking about the next four years. You didn’t get to use me for your little scheme. It’s over. Deal with it.”

“Just saying,” Raven said, flipping through songs on her scroll. I decided right then not to address her at all from this point on, unless it couldn’t be helped. We’d probably get more done without her ‘input’ anyway.

“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Qrow said after I turned back from his sister. “Raven and me just aren’t used to having all these dumb rules you gotta follow.”

“I’m not either, man. I still do, just ‘cos I know that’s how this world works. You gotta follow some rules. Going around making your own just makes it so no one trusts you, then you’re really outta luck.”

“Hm. I’m outta that anyway.”

“Geez. With that attitude you are,” Tai said with a grin. “Dude. You’re at a school designed to train you how to be a badass. Quit being such a downer.”

Qrow grinned. “Oh, I’m already a badass. Barely had to try to take you out back in class.”

“Pffft. Please, you got me by one percent aura-level. If that’d been a real fight—"

“I still woulda handed you your butt.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whew, is it hot in here or is that just the testosterone in the air right now?” Tai and Qrow both grinned. “Alright. Maybe we should start back at square one. Learn a little more about each other. Anyone want to go first?”

“Why? Pretty sure I already know everything I need to about everyone here,” Raven grumbled annoyedly, eyes still glued to her scroll-screen.

“Kinda goes back to that trust thing we were talking about a second ago.” Tai interjected before I could fling any inflammatory remark back.

“The only person ever worth trusting is yourself. And even then,” Raven shot a derisive look at Qrow before going back to whatever she was doing on the device. Qrow never returned his sister’s glance, but I could tell that for some reason, the comment had stung.

“Alright,” I said after an uncomfortable moment passed. “I’ll go first, then. I was raised all over, lived in all four of the kingdoms at one point or another. Favorite place so far has gotta’ve been a little village in Anima, right on the coast of Lake Matsu. My dad’s a huntsman. Bandit tribes kept him busy while we lived there, but an old friend of his ran a small combat school there so that’s where I’d train whenever he was off on a bounty mission or raid.” I couldn’t help but notice the Branwen twins’ share a glance at that, but I didn’t think anything of it. “But mostly my dad trained me, especially when I got old enough to come on short missions with him. My semblance is invisibility,” I willed myself to disappear for a moment before reappearing and continuing, “And I fight close-in with my whip, Scourge, and my sword here, Thorn.”

“Also, you’re a huge nerd,” Qrow said with a laugh. I grinned.

“Good of you to notice,” I said, bowing deeply.

“You forgot to tell us your name,” Tai joked. I shot him a dry look before leaning over and shoving him. He played along, sprawling exaggeratedly across his bed.

“It’s Petals,” Qrow mumbled under his breath.

“I heard that,” I said, glancing with mock irritation in his direction before rolling my eyes. “Seriously, if we don’t even know each other’s names at this point, we’ve really got issues. Who wants to go next?”

“I got it,” Tai said, sitting back up. “I’m Taiyang, everyone just calls me Tai. Can’t really say I lived anywhere fancy. Kinda just came up on the streets around here. Parents were a couple of druggies, couldn’t hang on to a job, got into some bad debt with the wrong people. Moved down from Mantle with me when I was barely old enough to stand, trying to hide or whatever. Ended up disappearing, and I never did find out what happened to ‘em. Don’t really care, honestly. I ended up in a home, in and out of the system for years with different foster families and whatnot, till I finally just got sick of goin’ back and decided I could make it on my own on the streets here. Ended up rolling with… Well, not the best kind of people. My tonfas were a gift from a cop who coulda arrested me for somethin’ I did a while back, but ended up lettin’ me go. Good guy, turned out to be the closest thing to a father I ever had. I made some… Slight modifications to them, in the combat school I went to over on Patch.”

“Patch? That’s… I’ve lived there the whole last year! I went to Signal too! How come I never noticed you?”

Tai laughed. “Not surprising. Val and I kinda thought you were a little weird, always off by yourself with your hood up and whatnot. You were kinda an introvert.”

“I wasn’t _that_ bad!”

“You totally were. Not saying I blame you, shy-girl. Especially now since I know you moved all over. Must’ve been pretty used to being an outsider, I’m guessing. You just did your thing, we did ours, and I mean, we never really crossed paths. No big deal.”

A wave of self-consciousness hit me as Tai spoke. I mean, I knew I was quiet most of the time but… was I really that awkward? I decided to change the subject, once I realized I already knew the answer to that. “So… Your tonfas. They have names?” I asked.

“Nah. Only really cool weapons have names. Mine’re kinda… Normal, I guess.”

            “Oh, that’s not true. Your weapons _are_ really cool. _And_ they have a backstory. They totally deserve a name.”

            “Not everybody _has_ to name their weapons,” Raven said, sighing exasperatedly. So, she _was_ listening.

            “Yeah, but lots of huntsmen do.”

            “Lots of c—”

            “Raven,” Qrow raised his hand annoyedly as he interjected, talking over his sister to stop the crass insult.

Tai shrugged. “Hm. Maybe I will name ‘em now, just to annoy Raven.” Qrow and I both laughed at that.

Raven grumbled something before shrugging. “I don’t think you quite grasp how little I actually give a crap,” our recalcitrant teammate shot before turning the volume up on her music and focusing back on her scroll.

“So, what’s your semblance?” I asked after returning Qrow’s shrug at his sister’s behavior, curious and already trying to envision how team-attacks might work between Tai and myself.

“Oh, nothing too fancy. It’s… Well, here. I’ll show you. Get your aura up.” Tai stood, activating his own golden energy, which flashed and rippled across his body.

“Okayyyy…” I said confusedly, standing and concentrating, willing my own crimson protective field to activate.

“Alright. I’m not gonna hit you that hard. I don’t really need to. I mean, it works better if I do, but I can kinda get the same effect either way.”

“I still don’t get it. What works better?”

“This,” Tai said as he positioned himself to my left. He threw a simple palm-strike, which I avoided out of instinct. “Oh, come on. Hold still, it’s not gonna kill you.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just… I dunno, I don’t know what you’re gonna do, so it’s weirding me out is all.”

“Just trust me. You’ll be fine. Aight, here. Ready?” I nodded, still unsure if I really was or not. Tai lined up the strike again, as Qrow watched with rapt attention. I even saw Raven glance up from her scroll, trying to hide her interest in whatever Tai was getting ready to do but still clearly intrigued. When he struck, I felt the weirdest sensation, like a crackling, tingling numbness that spread in a wave from my shoulder across my whole body. The hit hadn’t been hard, but it knocked me off balance a little. When I tried to base out my stance to catch myself, however, I realized that I couldn’t move.

“What the—woah woah _woahh_!” I began to fall, the strange paralysis stopping me from catching myself at all.

“Whoa, crap! I gotcha!” Tai said, as if realizing that he’d misjudged the strength of his hit. He leapt past me and slid, catching me just before I would’ve thudded helplessly to the floor. “I… Ahhh yeah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think I’d hit you that hard.”

“You didn’t, it’s just… I don’t know. Did you…” I realized something just then too that caused my eyes to snap to Tai’s. “Wait. My aura is down. What did you just do?”

“I overloaded your aura with mine. Takes a lot of energy for me to do it, but it leaves whoever I’m fighting pretty defenseless for a few seconds.”

“How did you… When did you learn to do that?”

“Figured out I could do it in a fistfight with a kid back in combat school. Actually… Heh. It was Val I was fighting with.”

“Wow. That’s… That could come in handy.”

“It does.”

“Hm. Cool,” I said, genuinely impressed by the hidden ability. Feeling began to return to my limbs, and I relaxed as the stiffness of the paralyzing effect abated and my aura crackled back across my body. “Hey, Tai?”

“Yeah?”

“You uh… You can let go of me now.” Tai was still holding me right where he’d stopped my fall. It was starting to get awkward.

“Oh! Ha uh, sorry. Yeah.” Tai let go of me, and I saw his face flush red with embarrassment. I couldn’t help but giggle at how uncomfortable I’d just made him as I eased myself into a sitting position.

“Wait, so you could’ve done that our whole fight and you didn’t? Why?” Qrow asked, clearly disquieted by the revelation of Tai’s powerful ability.

“Never felt like I had to, man. It wasn’t a real fight, and I only use that if I really, _really_ want to win, or I’m _know_ I’m about to lose.”

“Yeah, but… Twenty lien.”

“Psh. Food’s free here. Room too. What else I got to spend money on?”

“Hm. I’ve seen people get beat half to death for less where I’m from.”

“Must’ve been a pretty rough tribe you guys were raised in,” I said, wondering what kind of nomads were so desperate for what basically added up to pocket change for me and Tai.

“Yeah, you could say that. We weren’t always with them though. Raven and I were born in a village that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“What happened?”

“None of your damn business,” Raven growled before Qrow could reply.

“Hey, Raven, your brother had the speaking ball. Howabout you shuddup and let him answer how he wants?” I couldn’t help but smile at Tai’s blunt retort on behalf of the Branwen brother.

“It’s aight, Tai. She doesn’t do all my thinking for me.” Qrow shot me a look as he said that, and I remembered back to our earlier conversation after I had been released from the infirmary. “Raven and I were born in a little village called… Er… Kurōbā? Kurūbo? I dunno. Can’t remember exactly, ‘s been so long. I remember the banner though. Looked like a clover. Anyway, we couldn’t’ve been more than five or six when one day the village was wiped out by grimm while Raven and I were out playing in the woods. Came back that night to find everyone dead. We lived in the ruins for a little while, before our tribe happened by. The chief took us in, and that was that. Came here to get a bit more training, like I told you a while ago.”

I scratched my head. “Wait… Kurōbā? I’ve heard that name before. I think… Yeah, one of my friends back when I was living in Anima said she was born there too. Weird though, I could’ve sworn she’d said the place was raided by bandits before the grimm attacked.”

Qrow looked back at Raven for just a split second, and his sister shrugged apathetically. “Maybe there were other survivors, and maybe the bandits did attack first. We don’t know. Both of us were out playing when it happened.”

“Yeah. Something like that,” Qrow said, looking back to me. “How it really all went down, doesn’t matter. We got back and everyone we knew was dead. The end.”

Tai and I looked at each other, as if wordlessly commenting on the Branwen’s rather bleak outlook on the events of their past, yet neither of us seeming particularly surprised either. I couldn’t help but remember, though, what Raven had said about their father the other day. That had clearly been a harsh memory. Painful, almost as if they’d watched him die. But now they were saying that they’d been out in the woods when their village was attacked… Something didn’t add up, but I thought nothing more of it and decided it was probably best to change the subject. “So, I saw Raven’s semblance back in Ancient Vale. Those portals. Got us out of a tight spot, but she needed you outside before it would’ve done us any good. So, what, is that some kind of twin connection you two have or something?”

“Yeah. Well, it can connect to anyone…” Qrow’s voice trailed as he realized that Raven was glaring at him. “I mean, to uh, to anywhere near me. No more than like, ten meters or something. But you get it.”  What was her problem _now?_ We all needed to know each other’s strengths and abilities in order to be a better team. Why would she be against that?

“So, what about you?” I asked Qrow after staring pointedly at Raven for her having silenced her brother like that.

“Oh, me… I… Well… I’ve got one, but if I tell ya, I’d have to kill you.”

Tai sighed loudly. “Oh, come on, Qrow. We all have to know, it’s going to help us in the long run. You got a semblance or not?”

“Hahaha, of course I do. It’s like a force field that protects me from attacks and stuff…”

“Idiot. That’s aura. Your semblance, tell ‘em what your semblance is,” Raven snapped at Qrow.

“Oh, ahhh, yeah, I knew that. My semblance is… It’s um… Oh yeah! I can uh… See… like, really far. Like… _Really, really_ far.”

Tai and I both looked at each other, with me shrugging after a moment. That was a weird ability. Useful, I supposed. But weird. “Like _how_ far?” I pressed.

“Uhhh… _Really_ far.”

“Really far, huh?” Tai echoed, a slight mocking edge to his voice.

“Yeah. Really far,” Qrow confirmed with an emphatic nod.

Tai’s sardonic tone was one thing, but I noticed his gaze narrow and thought that perhaps there may have been an edge of suspicion masked behind his words as he tried to get Qrow to elaborate. “Not gonna… Oh, I dunno, give us any specifics or anything?”

“Nah, I mean, can’t really think of any to give you,” Qrow said, fidgeting noticeably and casting a look back at his sister. Raven just rolled her eyes.

“It’s not important, anyway,” she said. “So, you’ve heard our sad little story, and I’ve heard yours. Whatever you were hoping would come of that, I don’t really care, but I’ve got better places to be now that it’s over.”

“Hm. I dunno, Raven, kinda cool seeing what these guys are all about,” Qrow said as his sister stood and slung her backpack.

“Well, you I guess you all are just the best of friends now, aren’t you?” As she began to walk towards the door, Raven turned again. “Qrow, come find me when you’re done acting like you actually care.”

“Why are you so damn controlling, Raven?” I asked, just about sick of Raven’s disdain for our team and her attitude towards her brother. If he wasn’t gonna stick up for himself, I would. I stood from my seat and stepped between Raven and the door.

“Move, cheerleader.”

“No. I’m the leader of this team. As long as that’s true, you don’t get a free pass to just come and go. If we want to succeed, we’re all going to need to work together, and we can’t as long as you’ve got an attitude like that. So, what gives? What exactly is your problem, Raven?”

The dark-haired girl sighed. “Listen, I didn’t ask to come here. I was told. We both were. For the good of the tribe or whatever. I hope they’re all dead by the time Qrow and I get back, I honestly wouldn’t care. As far as I see it, me acting like I want to be here is a waste of my time. Just leave me alone, and we’ll get along fine.”

“Then why don’t you just leave? If you’re so selfish that you don’t even want to help your own people out, the people who pulled you and Qrow from the ruins of your village and raised you, gave you a home, you might as well just run off. There’s no point in dragging us down, too.” I hated having to be so brutally honest, but by this point I really was just too fed up with Raven’s attitude to care how I came across. “We sure don’t need you.”

“I don’t think you really mean that, Summer,” Tai said, clearly surprised at the sudden bite to my tone.

“Oh, yes she does,” Raven shot back over her shoulder to Tai. Turning back to me, she grinned. “About time you cut the act, trying to be everyone’s _friend._ ”

“It’s not an act. I’m just sick of trying to be _your_ friend.”

“Good. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Now move,” Raven growled as she shouldered past me. I was about to let her go, but as she gripped the door handle and pulled, Qrow brushed past me too.

“Raven, wait,” he said, grabbing at her backpack as she slung the door open. He hadn’t pulled really hard, but all the same, the worn old leather knapsack ripped all the way down its seams and its contents spilled all across the threshold of the door. Raven froze, and Qrow, Tai and I all stared at the mess that had clattered to the ground all around me. Several wallets, a few scrolls, and a little silver locket in the shape of a nevermore’s skull suspended from a silver chain littered the floor at Raven’s feet.

“You _IDIOT,_ ” Raven said as she turned her attention and boiling temper to her brother.

“What the…” I said, kneeling and picking the locket up off the floor. Standing, I again placed myself in between Raven and her brother. “This is Gretchen’s. She lost it the other day! And all these?” I said, indicating all the extra money clips and wallets, and the scrolls that clearly didn’t belong to the Branwen twin. “Did you two steal all these too? Is that the ‘trouble’ you said you were looking to get into on our first day?” I turned to look back at Qrow. His face looked like the mind behind it couldn’t decide on whether or not to look angry or ashamed. I felt the silver chain in my hand begin to slip as Raven tried to snatch it from my hand, and I clenched my grip.

“Let go. It’s mine!” Raven shouted.

“Like hell it is!” We both strained over the piece of jewelry, each trying to yank it from the other’s grasp. The delicate silver rings that made up the chain couldn’t take the strain, and the linkage snapped, sending Raven and I sprawling back to either sides of the doorway. I stood, my eyes immediately searching for the locket that had hung from the broken chain. It lay on the floor between Raven and me, its little silvery beak open to reveal a holo of Gretchen and another pretty lady who looked like an older version of my friend. Her mother. “Like I said. Not yours,” I growled, looking up as both Raven and I stood. My gaze halted midway up my teammate’s frame as I went to look her in the eyes, locking on an unexpected and imminent threat: Raven’s hand had gripped the hilt of her sword. She was getting ready to draw on me as she charged back into the room. My weapons were over by my bedside, too far for me to retrieve in time. I tried to leap back and avoid the impending strike, but realized I’d been too slow. This was gonna hurt.

“Raven! No!” Raven’s swing as she drew her weapon was so fast I barely saw it. Fortunately, it stopped as soon as it made contact with Curse. Qrow had thrust himself between Raven and me, stopping what would’ve been a powerful blow.

“Get out of the way, Qrow. I’ll handle this,” I said, leaping back over Tai’s bed to mine and grabbing Scourge and Thorn.

“Yeah, listen to your girlfriend, brother,” Raven spat mockingly as she spun around her brother and kicked him in the chin, sending him sprawling back into Tai before again charging me. Perfect. I turned invisible and slid low, punching Raven in the face with Thorn’s ringular outer chassis. I kept the blades retracted. The last thing I wanted was to actually injure my teammate, but as Raven recovered and whirled in the direction she knew I must’ve gone, the string of curses she let out made it pretty clear she wasn’t averse to giving me a few nasty cuts.

The tight space we found ourselves fighting in didn’t exactly favor my semblance that well either. There weren’t very many avenues I could use to evade the sweeping strikes Raven was making to try and find me. I stumbled back in an uncoordinated effort to slide past one attack, only to bump into the desk in the corner. The furniture shifted in response to the collision. “There you are!” Raven shouted, her sword swinging once again, this time directly for me.

 _CLANK!_ Thorn extended in my right hand just in time. I’d timed it so that the two separate halves would slam together like a claw as I actuated the weapon and their pivots were pulled towards each other by the powerful magnetic forces in the ring. It worked just as I’d intended, with Raven’s blade caught in the pinch point. Rather than clamp down on solid steel, however, I was surprised to see the interchangeable nodachi blade shatter like glass. licks of flame flashed through the atomized burn dust that must’ve been encased in the brittle material the blade had been made of. Without missing a beat, Raven’s arm snapped back to her scabbard, ejecting the broken lower end of her blade that was still attached to its grip with a pull of the trigger on the hilt. The simple but effective mounting system slid back into place in the rotary chamber, and a little window on the side of the scabbard flashed with a strange rainbow of colors before Raven again pulled the trigger on her weapon’s hilt and drew a new blade. This one was the same blue as the freeze dust Scourge used, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees the instant she brandished it.

“Am I gonna have to run you out of blades?” I shouted exasperatedly, even though Raven still couldn’t see me.

“I’ll send you back to the infirmary before you can!” The new blade sucked the warmth out of the air as it flashed towards me once again. I parried with Thorn, but Raven’s attacks were quick. I wasn’t a match for her in sword-to-sword combat, that much I could tell. I’d been avoiding using Scourge, but it seemed there was no other option as the fight raged about the room. I unspooled the braid and flicked it, leaving no dust reservoir selected. The last thing we needed was to burn the dorms down on the first day of class. The end of the whip snapped at Raven’s left calf, causing Raven to recoil at the sting of the unseen impact.

“Damn you!” She screamed as she unleashed a flurry of freezing swings. I dodged away, kicking off the wall and leaping over her head as she swung at the empty air by the doorframe. As I sailed over her, I again flicked Scourge out and caught her left wrist over her opposite shoulder and yanked. Raven’s own fist slammed into her face and she was pulled off balance, and I kicked her left shoulder to add a little power to the spin she now found herself in.

“Stop hitting yourself,” I taunted, genuinely pleased with myself for that. Flipping out of the leap, I landed on Tai’s bed. The disturbance in the blanket was pretty obvious, and though Raven’s left wrist was still caught, she swiped with her sword straight for me. I was prepared to answer the swing with a block from Thorn. What I didn’t expect, however, was the pull of the trigger on her hilt that released the ice-blue blade like a freezing, razor-sharp dart before it met my parry. The detached blade shot like an arrow right past my short sword, slinging close over my shoulder and slicing across my aura. The red ripple followed my outline before disappearing again, but it was enough for Raven to grab onto the braid of Scourge and pull herself towards me, aiming a vicious kick that caught my side and drove the wind out of me as I sprawled to the floor. My head hit the bedside table between Tai’s and Qrow’s beds and I was stunned for a moment. A moment too long, that was.

Raven came charging over the bed straight for where I’d thudded to the ground and planted her booted foot on what would’ve looked like bare floor to her. She got lucky. Her heel slammed into my shoulder, pinning it, and she grinned menacingly as she raised her sword in preparation for a vicious downward stab.

“Raven, stop, dammit!” Again, Qrow tried to intervene. Raven’s murderous gaze snapped to her brother as he charged, forcing her to adjust her stance and ignore me long enough for me to try to scramble back. Unfortunately, the weight of her back foot was still planted on the hem of my cloak, and I couldn’t do much to affect an escape. Raven swung the brand-new blade in a high-to-low strike at her brother, which Qrow easily sidestepped. “Too slow, sis!” He shouted as he hauled back with Curse. Raven just grinned, giving her brother some pause as his stroke fell. I knew why she was smiling. I’d seen the portal open behind Qrow, but he hadn’t as he’d rushed in. Raven evaded Qrow’s attack and booted her brother through the rift with a spinning back-kick. The receiving end of her semblance opened on the other side of the room, right by Tai. Qrow sprawled past our teammate, groaning, and Tai looked at the two nearby dimensional rifts as if an idea had just occurred to him.

I saw Tai’s grin, but my attention was again drawn by Raven as she turned back to me and again prepared to strike. At the last second before she would have, however, a hand surrounded in a bright golden glow struck through the still-open portal to Raven’s right. The full force palm-strike thudded squarely into Raven’s temple, and her body locked up as her aura crackled away and she sailed across the room. Tai leapt through the portal the instant before it closed, a satisfied look on his face as he searched the floor where he knew I lay.

I allowed myself to become visible again and accepted Tai’s help extricating myself from the awkward position between the beds where I’d landed. Qrow stood from where he’d landed and dashed over to Raven while her eyes glared at him, a prisoner in her own body while her brother relieved her of both her sword and rotary scabbard.

“I’ll just hang on to these, since you’re so dead-set on acting like a psychopath today,” he said as he backed up a safe distance, seemingly prepared just in case she regained her ability to move.

“You soft… Little… Prick…” Raven groaned as she slowly began to turn her head towards her brother.

Just then, I heard the door across the hall swing open as team GLDN dashed over and into our room. “What’s going on, Summer?” Gretchen asked, alarm and concern showing on the faces of our entire neighboring team. As my friend spoke, the blue-tinged hologram that still shone from the mouth of her locket caught her eye from where it lay on the ground. She knelt to pick it up. “My locket… How…” Gretchen looked at Raven, the torn backpack on the ground by the foot of Qrow’s bed, and back to Raven. “Oh. This what you guys were fighting about?”

“Among other things,” I said as I caught my breath from the short but intense fight. I picked the silver chain that had suspended the locket up from where it had come to rest, walking over to Gretchen and holding out my hand to take the little silver nevermore skull. “I’ll go fix it. I broke it, after all.”

“It’s fine, Summer. I’m just glad we found it. Don’t worry about it.”

“I need some time alone anyway. Give it here. I’ll be in the armory.” With that, I took the locket and walked off down the hall.

“Summer,” Tai called after me just before I rounded the corner out of our suite.

“What, Tai?”

“You good?” My blonde-headed teammate asked as he trotted up to me.

“What do you think? I was just trying to get to know everyone. We can’t even handle that. Tell Raven she’d better return everything she and Qrow stole, or when I come back, campus security will be right behind me.”

“But they’d be expelled if you got the cops involved!” Tai said, visibly taken aback that I’d go that far.

“Exactly,” I grumbled, turning back down the hall. “Team STRQ,” I said to myself. “Hmph. What a joke. We’re not a team, we’re a disaster.”

 


	11. It's gonna be a long night.

**Chapter 11:  It’s Gonna Be a Long Night.**

“Summer? Summer! Wait up!”

I stopped walking and sighed as I heard two sets of footsteps trotting up the moonlit cobbles of the thoroughfare to catch me. “What, Qrow?” Turning, I saw that both the younger Branwen twin and Tai had elected to come chase me down. Probably to make sure I didn’t actually get campus security involved. Whatever. I still hadn’t made up my mind on whether I would or not.

“Listen, Raven’ll come around.”

“Sorry, but I don’t really believe you. Everything she’s said and done since I met her has made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want to be here. I was wondering how long it’d take for her to just come out and say it.”

“You’ve just got to trust me. I was on your side in that fight, y’know just in case you didn’t notice.”

“See, now that’s what I don’t get, Qrow. I know Raven didn’t steal all that stuff by herself the other day. You were the one who suggested you two go find some trouble to get into, so once again, I’ve got reasons to trust you and reasons not to. Whose side are you on?

“Honestly? My own side. I’m the only one who’s ever looked out for me, and for Raven it’s the same.”

Tai squinted as if trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “But, you’re brother and sister. Don’t you two look out for each other too?”

“No. It’s like an unwritten rule we have. We take care of ourselves, but we stick together.”

Now it was my turn to cock my head to the side in confusion. “Why? From what I’ve seen it really looks like she can’t stand you sometimes. What’s the point of even sticking together?”

“You might not expect this, Summer, but it’s pretty simple. We stick around each other because it’s the right thing to do. We’re brother and sister. We’re all the other has left. Watching each other’s backs isn’t really part of that deal though. And there’s… There’s a reason for that.” Qrow cast his eyes down as I’d seen him do a few times already, and I couldn’t help but think he wanted to say something else just then. I was about to just tell him to spit it out, but it was Tai who actually took a step towards our teammate and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Got somethin’ eating you, man? I dunno about your sis, but I guarantee you can talk to us about it.”

Qrow sighed, then raised his head. “My semblance. I lied to you guys back in the room.”

“I figured that much. ‘Seeing really far’? Come on.”

“Yeah. Well, as lame as that one sounded it’d be better than what I actually have. I’m bad luck.”

“Will you quit saying that?” I chided.

“No, Summer, you don’t understand. I’m bad luck, as in, that’s my semblance. People around me get hurt. Things break. Enemies make mistakes. You tripped the other day, the day I met you. I’m willing to bet that was my fault, because it happened the second you passed me. That’s the real reason I went over and helped you up, not because I was being a gentleman or anything stupid like that.”

“But how can bad luck be a semblance? What, do you just choose when to give people fits of bad luck or something?”

Qrow smiled. “I wish. No, it’s totally random. Anyone near me is gonna have a rough time of things. Doesn’t matter, enemy of friend, whatever. Being on a team with me is like walking under a ladder while breaking a mirror as a black cat runs in front of you.”

I was certainly glad Qrow was being honest with us but… Well, the truth about his semblance wasn’t exactly good news. “So that’s what your sister meant when she said you can’t even trust yourself.”

“Yeah. She holds a lot of the bad crap that’s happened to us against me. Its an easy way for her to shed some of the blame, and I’ve started to think she’s right more often than not.”

“Well, she’s not. That much I can tell you. All of the problems she has right now, whether she’ll admit it or not, are her own damn fault,” I said.

“Hm.” Qrow grunted after a moment. “Well, I guess it’s nice having someone around who thinks so.” He was silent, but then his eyes looked back to me. “So, uh, are you really gonna get the cops involved? Raven might not want to be here, but I do. We’re away from the tribe, seeing the world, got good food, a roof, I’m not likely to get carried of by a nevermore any second I’m not watching the skies, y’know.”

I searched my teammate’s face for a moment, still unsure of whether or not I could truly trust him, before relenting. “Fine. Not this time. But you need to try to get your sister in check. You’re the only one she’ll listen to around here. I’m counting on you to do that, okay?”

Qrow shrugged. “I’ll give it a shot, I guess. But don’t expect a miracle, alright?

Suddenly, Tai’s scroll began to go off in his pocket. I laughed at the ringtone, recognizing the tune. “Is that… That’s the theme to Gun Art Online, isn’t it? Didn’t take you for the anime watching type there, muscles.”

“What? No, it’s just… It’s a good song!” Tai insisted defensively as he retrieved the device, laughing nervously as he fumbled for the button to accept the call and stop the moderately-incriminating music from playing at full volume in the quiet night air. “Stupid ringtone,” he grumbled under his breath as he raised the scroll to his ear. “Hey,” he said simply. He listened for a moment, and I saw the emotion and color drain from his face. “It… No. You’re sure it’s her?” I heard the muffled response from whoever had called him, and I was struck by the stone-faced expression that was set across the features of my normally relaxed teammate. Tai was silent for what seemed like a long time after the person finished speaking, before finally responding. “Alright,” he said finally. “I’ll meet him at the docks.” With that, Tai hung up and spun on his heel towards the main courtyard.

“Who was that?” I asked, concerned at Tai’s sudden shift in tone during that call.

Tai kept walking doggedly, before turning back and responding, “I’ve gotta head downtown. My dad’s sending another V.P.D. officer to pick me up at the docks.”

“What for?” Qrow wondered, raising an eyebrow.

“Body identification. It’s… Kent thinks it’s an old friend of mine.”

“Dad… Kent? That the officer who gave you the tonfas?” I asked.

“Yeah. Like I said, closest thing to a real dad I ever had, so that’s kinda just what I call him. He’s a lieutenant with V.P.D., lives on Patch when he’s not on tour four days out of every week. I guess he’s working tonight.”

“We’re coming with you,” I insisted.

“No, you’re not. This is a side of my life I put behind me years ago. It’s ugly business.”

“What, afraid we’re gonna be scarred for life or something? We’re gonna be huntsmen, man. Death is gonna follow us around our entire lives once we get outta here. I guarantee you it ain’t nothing Raven or I ain’t seen before.”

“And you?” Tai asked, turning to me.

“Ditto what the skinny one said,” I replied, tilting my head over to Qrow. “You’re gonna need us there, I’ll bet.

Tai sighed after a moment, and shrugged. “Alright. Come on.”

“What do you think it’s about?” Qrow asked as we fell into step beside our teammate.

“I don’t know, and I won’t until I see her.”

“Her?” Qrow prodded. Tai didn’t answer, which prompted Qrow to look over at me and shrug.

“Back in the room, when you said you were with ‘not the best kind of people’ when you were alone on the streets. What did you mean?”

“Firstly, I was never alone. I had her. Secondly, I… What do you know about the crime families that run Vale’s underground?”

“You mean like… The Xiong’s?” I replied. My dad had told me a little about what he’d seen on some of his trips to Vale in the past.

“Xiong, Tsov, and Tao. They’ve all had a fragile alliance after the last territory war ended up nearly crippling the Tsov and Tao families, but the patriarch of the Xiong family, Jīn, allowed them to continue existing if they paid him respects. Hefty cuts from their own separate drug trades, black markets, all that. Since then he’s become the richest man in Vale. Some say he’s got the council in his pocket. I believe it, too. And it’s all hidden behind his clubs. To anyone who doesn’t want to dig too deep, he’s just a businessman running a string of high and… Well, low-end bars all over Vale. And anyone who does snoop too far usually ends up dead.”

“Sounds like a fun guy,” Qrow mumbled.

“I wouldn’t know. Never met him, and I don’t know anyone who has. I was way down the line when I ran with the Xiongs, y’know, petty thievery, drug running, just enough to earn my keep. I did run into his head enforcer, once. He was paying a visit to my boss’ boss. Let’s just say my boss got a promotion after that, and I escaped soon after.”

“Wait, so… You were a gang member?”

“Yeah. That’s what this means,” Tai said as he pulled the red bandana on his left arm down and showed Qrow and I what had been concealed beneath. It was a scar from a burn of some kind… It took me a moment before I realized the burn had been a brand, and the brand was of a stylized ursa skull.

I looked over for Qrow’s reaction, in time to see him staring intently at the beastly mark. The look on his face was one of intense interest and surprise. “Hm,” he said after regarding the brand for a few long moments. “When’d you get that?”

“I think I was nine when I finally ran away from my last foster home. Wasn’t long after that I ended up with the Xiongs, and they gave me that. Supposed to be for my protection, so some Tao or Tsov wouldn’t try and rough me up. I think it was really more to show that they owned me, once I got burned. The only reason I was able to get out of that life was because as far as they all know, I got shipped off to a juvy down south when Kent arrested me.

“So, they don’t have people in the prisons?” Qrow asked. “Enforcers who get arrested on purpose to keep their people in line on the inside?”

“They do. But I was low enough to escape notice, I think. I don’t know. It’s been four years and no one has come after me yet.”

“Hm. Guess you never got deep enough for them to care,” Qrow replied.

“Guess not.”

We walked in silence for a while more, all the way to the docks without another word, in fact. I could almost hear Tai’s thoughts the whole time though. Whoever ‘she’ was, the possibility that the body he was being called to identify belonged to someone he knew was troubling him in a way I wasn’t used to seeing him troubled. Once we reached the three enormous, circular landing pads that hung out over the western cliffs above the vast, moonlit surface of the lake below, I scanned the brightly-lit midnight cityscape. Even now, Vale was alive with activity, with shift workers from the industrial district getting off work and the nightlife still going strong in the commercial district. I shuddered when I thought about what Tai had said, that the whole place was running on the whims of a single, evil man.

“Bet that’s your ride,” Qrow remarked, pointing to a quickly growing black speck that zoomed low over the water below before pitching up towards the pads. A police hovercruiser. I’d seen them before. Quick, mobile little air cars that weren’t bound by roads to get cops where they needed to be. This one was blacked out and unmarked, but I could still see the powerful spotlight mounted in the A-pillar and the concealable ports for a pair of Variable Ammunition Vehicular Defense cannons in the grille. Pretty slick, I thought to myself as the small, four-door craft banked in and landed in front of Tai.

“Shotgun!”

“Shotg—Dammit,” Qrow growled after I beat him to it.

Tai grinned. “Guess it’s you and me in the cage, man. You ever ridden in the back of a cop car before?”

“Nah. There aren’t really a lot of cops out where I’m from.”

“First time for everything, I guess. I feel like I spent a lot of my childhood in the back of one of these things. Most of the time I had cuffs on, too.” Tai opened the front door for me, leaning in to see who’d come to get him. “Hey, Lennie.”

“What’s up, little man?” I heard a boisterous voice reply from the driver’s seat. “Who’s this, now?”

“It’s my team, or, most of ‘em, anyway. I’m gonna ride in the cage, aight?”

“Letting the lady take shotgun, huh? Man. The L-T really turned you into a gentleman, didn’t he?”

“Nah, she just called it before I could. And I can’t very well break the rules of shotgun, now can I?” Tai and Lennie both laughed as my teammate stepped away from the doorway and I swung down inside the low-slung cruiser. I found myself beside a gigantic, heavily muscled, dark-skinned man with a friendly ear-to-ear grin.

“Leonard Francis. Call me Lennie, call me Francis, Detective, I don’t care just so long as you don’t call me late for dinner! And who might you be, miss…”

“I’m Summer Rose,” I said, grinning. Lennie’s powerful personality seemed to be matched only by his physical size. I wasn’t sure how he fit in the driver’s seat of the relatively small hovercar. Despite my general introversion, I immediately felt comfortable with the jovial inner-city detective as I extended my hand.

Detective Francis’ eyes bored into mine as my hand disappeared into his and we shook. “Rose? No way. You wouldn’t happen to be… You Cedric’s kid?”

I froze. “You… Know my dad too?”

“Lotta people around here know your Papa, little miss. Heh,” Lennie’s grin widened. “Damn. So, following in dad’s footsteps, huh? Keepin’ my boy back there in line?” Lennie jerked his head back to indicate Tai, who grinned at us in the rearview mirror from the enclosed detainee transport seats.

“As well as I can, Sir,” I replied. “He’s not really the problem. It’s the fourth member of our team. Just got done stopping her from sending me back to the hospital.”

“First thing’s first, cut the ‘Sir’ crap. I work for a living. And second, whaddyou mean, ‘ _back’_ to the hospital? Didn’t classes start like… two days ago for you kids?”

“Uhhm… Today, actually,” I said, sheepishly. “It’s a long story.”

“Hmph,” the detective grumbled with a shrug. “Well, some of my best friends started out wanting to beat the crap outta me too. Had ourselves our share of brawls. Now they’re all co-owners of my gym with me downtown, and half of ‘em are on the force with me too. Just keep after your teammate. Don’t back down, but don’t give up on her either. You’ll find something you have in common eventually.”

I looked back at Qrow, silently wondering what he thought of that bit of advice as the car sped back over the lake towards the industrial district. He just stared out the window, but the wry look and eye roll I saw reflected in the tinted glass were enough to show his skepticism.

“Where’d they find her?” Tai asked a few moments after the car went silent.

Lennie sighed. “Down by the shipyard. Body’s pretty clean, not even any blood, really. You’ll see when we get there.”

“Yeah,” Tai said absently, a faraway look in his eyes. We rode the rest of the way in silence, even though I desperately wanted to ask about the specs on the detective’s interceptor. Geeking out about the sleek ride seemed irreverent considering where we were going and why we were going there.

            I saw the blue and red lights reflecting off the walls and widows of the various warehouses and shipping offices that lined the commercial wharfs long before we landed. As soon as we touched down, I stepped out and opened the door for Tai, looking into his eyes as I did. “My turn to ask, blondie. You good?”

Tai forced himself to smile, before putting his hand on my shoulder as he walked past. “Yeah, I think. Thanks.” The suspension on the landing claws that had extended as we’d landed groaned and the hovercar rose noticeably as Lennie unfolded from the driver’s side, towering over the roof of the vehicle and pointing the way for the two of us to head as he let Qrow out. Muffled radio chatter could be heard from other marked cruisers that had pulled up around the scene. A mobile crime lab was set up inside the crime scene, at the entrance to a small alleyway we could see ahead. Safe bet the girl Tai had been asked to identify was in there.

“Tai!” A man with thick salt and pepper hair and equally dense mustache waved my teammate over from behind a line of holographic crime scene boundary markers. I followed him, stopping short of the barrier as he crossed. Qrow walked right through behind Tai without so much as a thought to whether or not he was supposed to or not, and I followed him in after nobody stopped him.

“Hey Kent,” Tai said once we reached the uniformed officer with a bright gold bar on his collar.

“Who’re the other two?”

“That’s my team leader, Summer, and that’s Qrow, he’s one of my two other teammates.”

“You’re cool with them being here for this?” Kent asked as he pushed his thick horn-rimmed glasses up his nose.

“Don’t see why not,” Tai shrugged. “So long as they don’t mess up your crime scene.”

“That’s just it, kid. There’s nothing to mess up. Never seen a killing so clean. It’s gonna be a long night if we can’t find even a scrap of evidence to log.”

“How’d it happen?” I asked.

“Single stab-wound, straight to the heart. Coroner said it was cauterized immedeately, not a drop of blood on her.”

“And you’ve never seen a wound like it?”

“Let me run this crime scene, little lady. Whatever questions you got, I already asked ‘em.”

“Oh. Of… Of course. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Now, this is Tai’s part. Can you head down there and check, make sure it’s your girl?”

“Yeah just, just gimme a sec, alright?” Tai acknowledged before turning back to Qrow and me.

“What did he mean by ‘your girl’?” I asked after a moment.

“Suppose there’s no reason for you not to know. Her name’s Jade. She was my foster sister at our last home, ran off with me. We ended up joining up with the Xiong’s together. We’d watch each other’s backs on runs of petty thievery. Always said we were gonna make it big together in the organization. Till I got arrested, that was. See, I let myself get nabbed on purpose, trying to escape when things were starting to get bad. I dunno, Jade liked the life, I guess. Told me I was stupid for trying to get away from it all, that we wouldn’t ever have it so good, y’know. But she was wrong. I told Kent about her, asked if he’d keep an eye out for her. I couldn’t convince her to come with me, but I always told myself, all the way through combat school, that I was gonna find her. I was gonna show her what I’ve learned, let her meet Kent’s family, and hope she’d change but… If that’s her under that sheet back there, none of that matters anymore. This life killed her just like it would have me, eventually.”

“Let’s hope it’s not.” Surprisingly, the words of encouragement came not from me, but from Qrow. “Your cop buddies could have it wrong. Been a while since you’ve seen her, right? Your description might not be right anymore.”

“Want us to come with you?” I asked.

“No. I’ll do this myself.” With that, Tai turned and headed resolutely down the alley to where the loose blue sheet lay over a human-shaped lump that was still sprawled exactly where the cops had found her. I saw him draw back the covering, watched as his head bowed and he took the corpse’s hand, gripping it tightly as his shoulders shook. My heart sank… I’d half hoped for Tai’s sake that it wasn’t her. Nothing but futile, foolish optimism, that. Tai pulled the covering down further, inspecting the wound, before crossing Jade’s hands over her abdomen and pulling the cover back over her body. His stricken face was the first thing the streetlamps and police lights illuminated as he emerged from the gloom. I’d seen him shaking, but his eyes were dry, piercing blue and clear as ever. His face was completely devoid of expression, but I could tell he wasn’t going to let himself cry. “It’s her,” he said softly to Kent as he reached the three of us. “She’d dyed her hair again, got a new tattoo I don’t remember her having before. But it was definitely her.”

“Alright, son. Now that that’s taken care of, we can try to move this investigation forward a little. We don’t have much beyond that wound, so all we can do is try and see if it matches anything that’s come up in old cases. I’m sorry, but being straight up with you, that’s probably the best we’re gonna be able to do.” Tai nodded forlornly, turning to leave. “Hey, Tai,” Kent added after a moment, reaching out and grabbing his ward’s arm.

“What?”

“I know you’re gonna want to find out who did this, and why. I don’t think I’d be able to stop you, either. Just remember, whoever killed her may have known it might bring you back into their games. Just… Stay safe, alright?”

“Got it, Kent. Thanks.”

“He’s got us watching his back too, Lieutenant,” I added, with Qrow nodding his affirmation.

“That’s good to know, at least. I know you kids can handle yourselves, else you wouldn’t be up at that school.”

“It’s better than that, L-T,” Lennie said as he finished talking with one of the coroners and headed our way.

“Yeah?” Kent asked.

The detective nodded at me. “She tell you her last name?”

“Nuh-uh. Well?” Kent prompted, turning in my direction expectantly.

“It’s Rose, Sir.”

“Rose. Well I’ll be hanged. Cedric’s kid. Damn, even got his eyes.” I tensed up as the lieutenant said that, but realized it was more an off-handed remark than a pointed statement and relaxed. Kent continued speaking, seemingly not picking up on my reaction. “Y’know, he’s helped us out a lot over the last year. You two are living back on Patch right now too, aren’t you? I think you guys are on the other side of the island from us, but still. I’ll have to pay him a visit, tell him I met you.”

“Oh, well, uh, last I talked to him, he’s heading out to take care of something. I don’t know what, he wouldn’t say.”

“Huh. Well, ain’t that a shame. I was thinking of getting the P.D.’s council rep to set up a bounty mission. Seemed like the kind of thing I figured he’d jump on the second he caught wind of it. Weapons dealer I’d like to have brought in, nothing crazy. Mid-level crook who’s been giving us some trouble up in the northside. Bet your dad would’ve enjoyed the work, stretch out a bit, bash some heads, you know.”

I grinned, thinking of how much like some kind of superhero the lieutenant was making my dad sound right then, but my smile evaporated when I looked back to my teammates and once again saw the pain in Tai’s eyes from his recent discovery. “I hope I can live up to his reputation, Sir,” I said somberly.

            As if sensing I cared more about my teammate’s wellbeing than discussing my dad’s adventures at the moment, Kent tipped his police cap to me and smiled. “I’m sure you will. Nice meeting you, miss. Alright boys,” Kent said as turned to the coroners. “You can take her. Got confirmation on an identity… At least her grave’ll have a name on it.”

The three of us stood together in silence for a minute, watching as two black-jacketed men with the word “CORONER” embroidered across their backs wheeled a stretcher down the alley to pick up Jade’s body. Once they placed her in the ambulance and drove off, Tai finally spoke. “Kent’s right. I am gonna figure out who did this. I’m gonna find them, and… I’m gonna make sure they pay for what they did.”

“I’m in,” Qrow said without hesitation. “This whole thing reminds me too much of me and Raven, man. I know she and I don’t get along all that great sometimes, but if someone killed her just to get to me, I’d hunt ‘em down and make ‘em regret the day they were born.”

“Thanks, man,” Tai said, managing a slight grin.

I put my hand on Tai’s shoulder again. “I’ll help too. But you have to promise me something, Tai.”

“What?”

“You won’t kill whoever did it.”

“Why not? It’s fair.”

“Because that’s not what huntsmen do. We don’t stoop to their level. You cover that burn for a reason, right? That’s not you anymore.”

Tai sighed. “Yeah. You’re right, I guess. Okay. No promises about beating them senseless though before we turn ‘em in.”

“That I can get behind,” I said, smiling.

“Hop on back into the mako, kids,” Lennie said as he passed us. “I’ll get y’all back to campus. Heck, I’ll drop you off right at your dorm, I don’t care.”

“The heck is a mako?” Qrow asked.

“Guess you’re landlocked, where you’re from. It’s a type of shark. All’s you need to know is it’s mean, and it’s quick, just like my ride, kid.”

“Meh. Doesn’t do it for me. This thing kinda reminds me of some sort of cat, actually,” Qrow replied.

“What, like a jaguar?”

“Yeah, jaguar, puma, I dunno.”

“Well, I didn’t name it, the manufacturer did,” Lennie said in defense of his car. “Now get in.

“Shotgun!” I called once again, shooting a satisfied glance at Qrow.

“Dang it. Again?”

“Deal with it.” Tai and I both laughed as we climbed back inside the car. I knew how hard it was for Tai to see what he’d just seen, but to see him laugh again gave me a little hope. We’ll catch whoever did this, I promised myself just then. I’ll make sure Tai gets the justice he needs, no matter what it takes.

 


	12. The Strength of our Sparks

**Chapter Twelve: The Strength of Our Sparks**

“That’s our room right there, Lennie,” Tai said as he indicated the third dorm off the commons. “Looks like we can get in through that door on the roof above our suite.”

“Express access, huh? What, don’t wanna climb all those stairs?” Lennie replied with a sarcastic grin. “Aight, yeah I can drop you guys off there.” The mako banked hard over the tree-lined thoroughfare and swooped in on a flat maintenance roof that I hadn’t known was there until now. Tai was right, our window was right beneath its edge. Detective Francis brought the car down to a hover over the flat, small area, not bothering to drop the landing claws as I got out and circled the vehicle to let the boys out of the back. As I reached the driver’s side, the tinted window rolled down and my eyes met the V.P.D. Detective’s.

“Thanks for the ride, Detective,” I said, wondering why he was looking at me with such concern just then.

“Anytime.” Lennie looked down for a second, then right back to me as he rested his beefy arm on the door and tilted his head partially out the window, motioning for me to lean closer. “Look. Summer. Call your dad whenever you get a chance to. I heard you tellin’ the L-T that he’d left already. I knew he would, just as soon as he knew he didn’t have to worry about you. The way he was talking the last time we worked together, he was really anxious to have you come here. Said you wouldn’t understand, never gave up any details. The whole time, he was just hard to read. Cryptic, about all of it... I still don’t know what he meant. Tell you one thing, though. I’ve locked up a lotta dudes, seen ‘em staring at me from inside their cells. I know what it looks like in a man’s eyes when they’re after revenge.”

“Revenge? You think that’s what my dad left for?”

“I ain’t the smartest guy you’ll ever meet. I mean, I’m just some meathead ex-military cop. But I do know people, what they do, how they think. Your dad ain’t no different. He had a fire in his eyes, and bad. Just call him. Don’t let him get too lost in all that, remind him you’re still here. Can you do that?”

“I will. And thanks, Detec… Lennie.”

“Like I said. Anytime.” Lennie leaned out further and waved at Tai. “Be good, kid. Don’t let this one boss you around too much,” he added, nodding sideways at me.

“Only in her dreams, Lennie. I’ll be seein’ you,” Tai waved back as Lennie disappeared back into the car as the sleek black cruiser took off once again towards downtown.

“What time is it?” I asked as Tai pulled out his scroll.

“Almost one in the morning.”

“Geez. We’d better get some rest, then. We’re all gonna be hurting tomorrow… History and Grimm Studies are back to back in the morning.” I turned to head to the door that I knew must lead down some stairs to that random maintenance access I’d noticed near the entrance of our suite’s hallway.

“Hold on a minute. We need to figure out where to start. Every second we wait could be another lead we just let go cold.” Tai was insistent. I was about to tell him that it could wait until lunch tomorrow… But the look in his eyes told me he wouldn’t take that as an answer.

“Alright. So, I guess… I dunno, where do you think we should start? Did the injury look familiar to you at all? Was it just like your dad said, a cauterized stab-wound?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Tai replied. I noticed his eyes lose focus for a second as his mind revisited what he’d seen in the alley minutes earlier. It was only a moment before he looked back up at me and continued, “Any idea what kind of weapon would do that?”

“Easy,” I said, suddenly reminded of how useful it could be to be a weapon geek. “Dust-infused blade. Burn or shock, most likely. Know anyone back in your time with the gangs that used that kind of weapon?”

“No, no one. Dust weapons like what could’ve caused that are hard to come by on the streets. At best, your typical enforcer would roll with a stolen pistol. Bodyguards and head enforcers might’ve had something fancy like a dust-blade, but it’d be rare. A weapon like what Raven’s got…” Tai’s voice trailed off and he and I both looked at Qrow.

“What? Wait… No. No no no no. Listen here, you two. My sis is a lot of things, but a killer ain’t one of those things. Especially not some random girl she’d never met, just… Just for kicks and giggles or whatever you’re implying.”

“Sorry,” Tai said, elbowing me after I didn’t immediately relent with my accusatory look. I nodded finally before my blonde teammate continued. “Just kind of crossed our minds. We weren’t seriously considering it.”

“Yeah, well, sure looked like it. Anyway, so the weapon thing is a bust.”

“Maybe not…” I thought aloud. “Remember what the lieutenant was saying he needed my dad for? That bounty mission? He said it was a mid-level weapons dealer. Weapons. Maybe he’s seen the thing that did this.”

Tai sighed. “I mean, it’s a long shot. Smuggling was one of the big money makers for the Xiongs. Drugs, weapons, dust, people… You name it. Lots of moving parts involved in an empire like that. It’ll be hard to find just that one guy. Kent didn’t even drop a name.”

“Yeah, but he said the guy was operating out of the northside of downtown. That’s gotta be deep into the commercial district, right?”

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t narrow it… Wait. Hang on… Summer? You’re a genius.”

“I mean… I know, but…” I said confusedly.

“I might still know a guy up in the northside. Bet he could point us to whoever’s running the dark market up there nowadays.”

“And who’s your guy?” Qrow pressed.

“Old friend. He’s cool, he knew both me and Jade. He was the mule.”

“Mule?” I asked.

“Smuggler. Delivery boy. Whatever you wanna call it. He kept our street-level dealers supplied with whatever they were tryna sell. My boss was one of those dealers, so I’d get sent to work with him every now and then when he was trying to move some of my boss’ goods. Distract cops, block security cams, whatever.”

Qrow shrugged. “So, where can we find him?”

“If I had to guess? He’ll be wherever there’s good ramen. I swear, he knew every shopkeep by name back in the day. They knew him too, cheap loser always running up tabs and never paying them off. I bet the guy who runs the noodle house on eighth’s seen him recently.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing. We’ll go after classes tomorrow, since we only got one class after lunch.”

“Or we could just skip class and go get lunch at the ramen shop,” Qrow said, smiling deviously. “Find your boy and go eat? That’s killing two birds with one stone, right?” I didn’t even bother putting a response into words. The glare I shot Qrow for his suggestion was enough. “Fine. Fine. I was kidding. I’ll see if Raven wants in on this too.”

“Ehhh… Probably better if you don’t, actually,” Tai said. “Y’know, I mean considering what happened earlier. Dunno if she’ll have cooled down enough to be any help.”

“The least I can do is ask. She’d probably say no, but if she didn’t she’d be good to have around. We can’t take on a whole gang with just the three of us.”

Tai and I shared a look. It certainly seemed both of us doubted Raven’s value here, but Qrow wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Alright,” I sighed, relenting. “See if she’ll help. But it’s on you if she tries to start something with any of us.”

“Noted,” Qrow replied with a nod.

“Guys? We might have a problem.” Tai had walked over to the door that would’ve been our route to the suite below.

“What, Tai?”

Tai jiggled the handle, which only rattled dully but didn’t turn. “It’s locked.”

“Oh perfect. That’s just our… Luck…” I replied, eyes turning once again to Qrow.

“Come on, just ‘cause I told you my real semblance doesn’t mean you can blame me for _everything_ bad that happens.”

“Kinda can,” Tai joked. “Never know when it is or isn’t your fault, so we might as well blame you for all of it, right?”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Story of my life,” he said wistfully. “Anyone got any ideas?”

“The window, I guess. That’s all I got.”

“Might as well,” Tai agreed. The three of us made our way to the edge of the roof, looking down to the ground four stories below. “There’s a ledge at the same level as our window sill, but it’s narrow, and it’s a long way down.”

“Guess it’s a good thing we practiced our landing strategies again, right Qrow?” I asked. Qrow didn’t seem to appreciate the joke, tugging at his trousers uncomfortably as if remembering falling though the air in that skirt yesterday afternoon. “Is the window locked?” I added when he didn’t respond.

“Can’t tell. Probably.”

“I can fix that,” Qrow said.

“Alright. Here,” I said, drawing Scourge. I extended the last meter or so of the whip and handed the end to Qrow, who eyed the barb on the end like he was holding a venomous snake.

“Y’know, I think I can just climb down. I mean, I saw what this thing did to _your_ hand and, well, with _my_ luck…”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. Fine, here,” I chided as I exchanged Scourge’s grip for its barbed end with Qrow. “Tai and I will hold the _scary_ end. You lower yourself down with that. Remember though, you gotta flip the thumb-switch beneath the dust selector down. That’ll set it to extend. Then just pull the trigger, but _don’t_ let go until you reach the full length, unless you reset the selector switch by clicking it up one setting first.”

“Got it. Sure. You two ready?” I didn’t get the feeling Qrow had really been listening to my instructions that well, but I nodded as Tai took hold of the second-to-last segment of the braid. We braced against Qrow’s weight as he leaned back to rappel down to our window, and I couldn’t help but snicker a little as he stared confusedly for a moment at the multiple different controls built into Scourge’s grip. “Alright. So, selector switch to down, got it,” Qrow mumbled to himself as he puzzled through what I’d told him to do. “Now pull the thing and…” I saw his finger tighten around the trigger, saw his grin as the whip reeled steadily out and began to let him down, and then suddenly saw his upper body disappear and the soles of his feet flail about before dropping out of view. “Whoa, wh- _WHOA_!” Qrow shouted as he fell unceremoniously from the edge of the maintenance roof, helpless as the full length of Scourge unspooled before snapping taught.

Tai and I dug our heels as the whip reached its full extension and Qrow’s weight yanked us forward. Between the two of us our feet didn’t slip far before we again steadied ourselves. “You got him?” I asked Tai.

“Hunh. Yeah. Skinny pipsqueak, I got him.”

“Who’re you calling a pipsqueak, you beach-blonde ape?” We heard Qrow call from over the precipice.

Tai grinned at the insult, loosening his grip ever so slightly so that about five inches of braid suddenly slipped through his grasp before he re-tightened his hold.

“Ah! Crap! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll unlock the window, just don’t drop me!” Qrow pleaded.

I nodded at Tai and let go, allowing him to take Qrow’s weight as I leaned over the edge of the small roof to look down at our teammate. “You let go of the trigger.”

Qrow looked back up at me annoyedly, flipping the hair out of his eyes and grumbling. “Yeah… Yeah I did.” He pulled a small multitool out of his back pocket and went to work on the locking mechanism of our window.

“Exactly what I told you not to do.”

“Mmmhm. Pretty much.”

“You’re such a doofus.”

“Yeah,” Qrow grumbled up at me as he quickly succeeded in jimmying the lock and pushed our window open. “I’m a doofus, but could you’ve gotten this lock open?”

“Probably. Now get in.”

“Psh. Whatever, fine.” Qrow kicked his foot out and onto the bedside table that lay just beneath our window, gingerly transferring his grip to the window frame before swinging himself inside.

**~  ~  ~  ~  ~**

Pyrrha and I watched as I climbed down my own whip into the window behind Qrow, took hold of the grip with him, and braced against Tai’s weight as he leapt from the roof and swung down below our window. A few seconds later, his grinning head popped up over the sill as he hauled himself up, and I set Scourge to retract to pull him inside. Unsurprisingly, Raven wasn’t in the room.

“You’re all in for a rough day with those classes in the morning on so little sleep. Even I found them dry.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, Peter teaches Grimm Studies now, doesn’t he? And Bart took over History from old Professor Torstein after she retired. Poor kids, you all must’ve had it worse than we did.”

“Coffee helped. Nora would always make it too strong, but at least we weren’t falling asleep in class. Speaking of falling asleep…”

“You’d rather not risk another trip to that Dreamworld, right? Probably a good idea, given what just happened last night.” I closed my eyes and concentrated, willing the memory to fade and skipping all the way to just before Grimm Studies let out and we were released for lunch. Qrow was out cold and drooling two seats down from me, and I saw myself nudge Tai to get him to wake our teammate up. Tai was… Well, he wasn’t gentle. A stiff elbow to the ribs caused Qrow to shoot to his feet, fists raised and eyes darting back and forth as if searching for the fight he thought was imminent.

“Ah, Mr. Branwen! So you’re our volunteer to fight the captive pair of King Taijitu locked in the school basement, are you?” The whole class looked from Qrow to Professor Schaefer and back, all probably wondering the same thing: There’s a pair of _what_ in the school basement?

“What? No, that’s not what I—”

“Pity. Even more a pity that we don’t _have_ a pair of Taijitu in the basement. Although, if we did, one would probably have killed the other long ago. Fascinating creatures, sharing the same body with another independent head but unwilling to share the same hunting grounds with another of their own kind… Savagely territorial and quite enormous, yet amongst the stealthiest grimm you might encounter in the wilds. So, unless you want one sneaking up on you, Mr. Branwen, might I recommend that you stay awake in my class?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah. Sorry or—yeah. Sorry.” Qrow sat back down, embarrassed to have been had by another of Professor Schaefer’s little jokes. This was our first day of class with the man, and it was clear he very much enjoyed toying with his students.

Pyrrha and I both laughed at the incident. I looked at the kid who would eventually become my husband and sighed. “What a doofus,” I mused, noticing the look halfway between amusement and annoyance at his lack of regard for class that my younger self shot Qrow. The end-of-class alarm sounded just as the ripple of derisive chuckles directed at my teammate died, and Professor Schaefer motioned at his holodesk. An image of a file popped up, which he grabbed and flung haphazardly towards the class as everyone stood to leave. The little blue image broke apart into little blue pixels that reached the end of the projector’s range before fading into nothing. As they did, every scroll in the room vibrated once with the received file.

“Chapters one through three need to be read by next class, there are exercises associated with all three in that file, expect tests by next week, ladies and gentlemen.” The sound of laughter at Qrow’s expense changed tune to a murmur of complaint on that sour note as the students filed out. That was a lot of coursework, and we still had a mafia weapons-dealer to beat up that evening. It seemed we were in for some more long nights.

I walked alongside my red-haired companion and the ‘R’-less team STRQ to the cafeteria, with GLDN falling into step besides the five of us. Val actually walked right through Pyrrha as he moved to catch up, startling her, but she didn’t say anything for a moment, instead watching Tai and his old friend razz each other about something or other before finally speaking. “So… Mr. Xiao L—Tai had a pretty rough childhood, didn’t he?”

“You could say so, yeah. I mean, he told us all, y’know, back in the room before that fight with Raven. And Qrow and I got a little taste for what he was running from at the crime scene. But I don’t think we really _got_ it. Well, I certainly didn’t. Qrow and Raven probably understood a lot more than they let on.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see. Just know they’ve got plenty of reason to sympathize with Tai.”

“If you say so,” Pyrrha replied, clearly perplexed at my withholding an answer from her.

“I mean, if you want to know all the details beforehand, I’ll tell you,” I said with a wave of my hand. “It’ll all come out in time, but I could just tell you everything now and we could skip to all the craziest parts of the memories.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Pyrrha insisted. “It’s just, I don’t know, it feels like I’m missing something important whenever you say things like that, Summer.”

“Oh, no need to worry there. If you missed something, I could easily go back and remember. You wanted to see the whole story, right? You will. I’ll make sure not to leave anything out.”

“I’m just glad you’re willing to share it at all.”

“Of course. Memories are no fun to reminisce on if you don’t have someone to do it with. I think I’m realizing that more and more, the last few days. For that I think I actually have you to thank, Pyrrha.”

“You’re… You’re certainly welcome, Summer. But…”

“What?” I prompted after Pyrrha didn’t continue for a moment.

My companion sighed, composing herself. “We need to check on everyone back in the real timeline. It’s been days. We need to make sure they’re okay.”

“Pyrrha, are… Are you sure?” Pyrrha nodded as I studied her face. She was serious. Nervous, but serious. “That’s admirable. Really. In all honesty, I do really want to know how my daughter is doing. And Yang. And I’m sure you want to check in on your team, as well.”

“I do.”

“Alright. We’ll do it. Listen, though.” I took Pyrrha by both shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I told you before. I swore to Ruby I’d protect you from having to suffer. If it becomes too much, I’m pulling us back into my memories.”

Pyrrha got a far-away look in her eyes, before looking back to me. “Sometimes pain is necessary. It gives our joy some perspective.”

That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I let her go, and couldn’t stop myself from casting my eyes down as I thought about that simple statement. “I… I guess.” She had a point. Still, joy and pain seemed to go hand in hand for me as I’d watched Ruby grow up. For a moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if I still even knew the difference. “Alright. I’ll leave it to you, then, to decide when enough is enough.”

“Thank you, Summer. We should check up on Ruby first, though. We can worry about my team after that.”

“Alright.” The image of my baby girl as I’d last seen her, unconscious back in Vale, appeared in my head. _Show me my daughter,_ I thought. After a brief moment, the veil responded and she appeared. We were back in our house on Patch. Ruby was in the kitchen, making coffee by the looks of it.

“I got it, honey. You should be resting,” a gentle, care-filled voice said from behind us. Tai walked from the living room into the kitchen, right past us as we turned to see who had spoken. We both watched as he tried to take the coffee pot from Ruby, who stubbornly refused.

“I’m fine, dad. Really. It’s for Yang. I’ll go back to bed once I bring it to her, I promise.”

Tai sighed. “Alright. But straight back to bed. You’re still way more pale than usual.” Turning back to the living room, he added over his shoulder, “Don’t be surprised if Yang is… Not really willing to talk much.”

Ruby nodded pensively as she finished pouring the two mugs of steaming liquid, waiting for Tai to leave before reaching over to a little ceramic container beside the coffeemaker and grabbing a palmful of sugar cubes. She dropped four in her coffee, thought for a second, dropped in one more, made sure Tai wasn’t watching, then tossed the other two in before grabbing both the container with the few remaining sugar cubes it had in it and the tiny ceramic creamer pitcher and placing it on a tray with the drinks.

“She’s going to give herself diabetes or something, I just know it,” I thought aloud, smiling at my daughter’s sheepish attempt to hide her sugar addiction.

“Seven sugars? That’s… I’m actually not sure if I should be worried or impressed.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. You should’ve seen her throwing back cookies and milk when she was a toddler. I’ve met grown men who couldn’t eat that much.” Pyrrha and I laughed, following my daughter up to the bedroom Ruby and Yang used to share. Unexpectedly, Ruby stopped at the old guest bedroom before reaching the end of the hallway and knocked.

“Yang?” When no answer came from within, Ruby pushed open the door. Yang was laying in the bed with her back to the three of us as we entered. I could see her face reflected in the window in the opposite wall. She wasn’t asleep. Her eyes were wide open as she stared blankly at the fall trees outside without so much as acknowledging her sister’s presence for a few tense moments.

“Hey,” Yang said, finally. I could’ve sworn I’d heard Raven’s trademark lack of enthusiasm in echoing in her daughter’s voice. The two people couldn’t be more unalike, but still…

“You… uh… I brought you some coffee…” Ruby fumbled for words, and I was taken somewhat aback at how hesitant she seemed around her sister. Their bond had been so strong… Was Yang really that shaken up?

“Just put it on the table. I’m tired, and I don’t really feel like talking right now.”

“You don’t have to talk,” Ruby replied, relaxing a little as she placed Yang’s coffee down beside a small vase with a single wilted sunflower standing within. Walking back to the door, Ruby stuck her head out and listened for footsteps that would indicate Tai’s approach. My old teammate was still downstairs, and once Ruby seemed convinced he wasn’t about to come up she closed the door and pulled a chair from the corner over to Yang’s bedside. Taking her seat, Ruby raised her coffee to her lips but didn’t drink. Instead, she cast her eyes down, lowered her mug, and said softly, “I’m leaving.”

“What?” Pyrrha gasped softly, clearly more surprised than Yang was.

“I knew it wouldn’t take her long to make that decision,” I said with a sigh. “She’s definitely my daughter.”

“I already sent letters to Weiss, Jaune, Nora, and Ren,” Ruby continued to her unresponsive sister. “The day I woke up. I don’t know if they made it or not, and I don’t know where Blake… Never mind. Hopefully some of them will answer. But Uncle Qrow seemed to know that… Cinder…” Ruby’s fists clenched as she said the name, “And Emerald and Mercury, they all went back to Haven. So that’s where we’ve gotta go.”

Yang didn’t say a word for what seemed like the longest time. Finally, however, she sat up, and Pyrrha and I caught a glimpse of her severed, bandaged stump as she turned her lilac eyes to Ruby. “It’s stupid. And reckless. How are you even going to get there?”

“We’ll walk.”

“Hmph. Yeah, right.”

“We will, sis. You’ll see. I wanted to ask you too…”

“What? If I’d come with you? Look at me, Ruby. I’m worthless. I’ll probably never fight again.”

“Don’t say that! They make prosthetics! You didn’t see General Ironwood. He’s like, half robot or something!”

“Ruby, even if I could get my hand on some tech like that. I can’t fight anymore. I don’t want to. I’m…”

“You’ll get better!” Ruby insisted.

“No, I won’t. Some types of wounds don’t ever heal.” I noticed then as Yang said that, the deep bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. I’d seen that before, in battle-hardened soldiers, and fellow huntsmen… In Tai and Qrow after that mission… Yang mustn’t have slept well in days.

“You’re wrong, Sis. You’re the strongest person I know. I know… I know I can’t even begin to imagine how scary what you went through must’ve been, but we all saw things we wished we hadn’t during the battle. I don’t think I’ll ever get the look on Pyrrha’s face as she died out of my mind. Ever. But she wouldn’t want me to remember her like that, and that’s why I’ve got to move on… I… I don’t want to remember you like this!” Ruby exclaimed, jumping to her feet and tears beginning to stream down her cheeks and the sudden outburst causing Yang’s eyes to refocus on her sister. “Promise me! Promise me you won’t give up, Yang. Promise me I won’t have to carry on without… Without my big sister.” Ruby threw her arms around Yang, who sat motionless for a moment. I could see her face over Ruby’s shoulder. For a split second there was surprise, and deep remorse there. A tear formed in the corner of one eye. But before Ruby broke the unreciprocated embrace, Yang’s features hardened again.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Yang said as Ruby stepped back. She got a faraway look in her eyes as she looked back out the window, probably trying to conceal how close she was to breaking down herself. “Seems like every time we do someone comes along to give us a reality check.”

Ruby wiped the tears from her face, staring at her sister for a moment as if unsure of who she was looking at. I knew exactly who, but Ruby had never met Raven. “At least… At least promise me you won’t tell dad.”

Yang sighed. “Fine. He’ll have heard you shouting. Might want to get out of here.”

Ruby turned to leave. Before she crossed the threshold of the door, she looked back over her shoulder. “I still believe in you, Sis,” she said, before closing the door behind her. As soon the latch clicked, Pyrrha and I saw Yang turn back toward the door. She was crying for real, now, tears flowing like a river down each cheek.

“Yeah. I know you do,” Yang said quietly before raising her severed arm, staring for a moment at the bandaged stump, and then lying back down. She pressed her face into her pillow as quiet sobs began to wrack her body. The coffee on her bedside had stopped steaming.

“Yang can pull through,” Pyrrha said confidently. “I know it. She’ll find a way to make herself stronger with this experience.”

“That’s always what she’s been best at,” I replied. The images faded away and Pyrrha and I were again alone in the beyond.

“Don’t you want to see Ruby anymore?” Pyrrha asked.

I shook my head. “No. She’s alive, she’s recovering. And this hasn’t put out her spark. That’s enough for me. For now.”

“I suppose. Your daughter has some incredible strength. I can only hope my team is handling things just as admirably.”

“Only one way to find out. Remember, Pyrrha, I’ll be right here if you need me to override what we see.”

“Don’t. I need to see it. Like I said, I need to know the pain Salem’s evil caused, that way I can appreciate the joy my friends find without me that much more.”

I studied the girl beside me for a moment. She meant it. It certainly was a strange view to hold but… In a way, I could appreciate the poetry of it. Finally, I nodded. “Alright. Go ahead, tell the beyond what you want to see.”

“I want to see Jaune.”

“You don’t necessarily have to say it out loud,” I smiled.

“Oh,” Pyrrha said with a coy smile. Shapes began to form around us. Jaune… And right next to him, Ren and Nora. “They’re all still together. It certainly is strange to see Jaune in a suit. I… Oh.” Pyrrha looked around at the surrounding we found ourselves in beside her team. It was a forest, burning with autumn colors. Jaune, Ren and Nora weren’t the only people around, and judging by Pyrrha’s expression and how her eyes lingered on the face of each figure, she knew most of them. Dozens of people, all wearing black suits and dresses not unlike the formal attire worn by her team. There was structure to the way the crowd stood. The were arrayed… Around a single, simple marble tombstone. Pyrrha’s hand went to the clasp on her waist, where the same symbol that was etched into the headstone was also engraved.

Beneath the symbol there was a name, and a few simple words:

**Pyrrha Nikos**

**_“Fight Ever for what you Love, and Always follow your Destiny.”_ **

 “I… I used to play in these woods. And train. My family…” Pyrrha’s eyes were darting back and forth now, searching for someone in particular, before she found them and trotted right through the crowd over to where a tall, lean man and a woman with fiery red hair like hers stood. A girl, about four years younger than Pyrrha, stood beside them, as did a boy a few years younger still, who didn’t look like he quite understood what was going on. “My Parents… And my stepbrother and sister… My funeral.” Pyrrha was now standing right beside her tombstone, as people began to file off, starting with her parents. Each one either traced the words on the stone with a finger, or ran their hand along the top of it, before stooping to gather a handful of dirt and toss it into the grave that had been dug. It was a small hole. The only thing within was a small ebony box, just large enough to hold ashes or perhaps… A circlet.

Jaune reached the gravestone last, and he, Ren and Nora all laid their hands on it together. Jaune’s face looked to be hewn from the same marble as the grave marker. He was holding it together, though barely, as I could see tears welling in his eyes. Even Nora and Ren were crying. They each took their handfuls and, together, dropped them into the hole. Two men with shovels were waiting reverently by to finish filling the grave, and stepped forward as Jaune looked to his teammates and the three of them carried on.

Pyrrha’s mother and father had stopped a little way off, and each member of the funeral procession had been offering final condolences to the family as they left the event. Jaune shook Mr. Nikos’ hand, and Ms. Nikos, before patting her half-brother and half-sister’s shoulders. “Mr. Arc,” Pyrrha’s father said, before Jaune could turn to leave.

“Yes sir?”

“My daughter messaged us about you quite a lot, you know. I do believe she truly loved you.”

The words seemed to take Jaune by surprise. “I… I loved her too, Sir. I wish she had only let me fight by her side at… At the end.”

“She protected you… So you could remember her. Here,” Mr. Nikos produced something wrapped in a piece of red silk from within his jacket. “Now you can always fight with a little of her by your side. I took it out of that box before it could be buried. You returned it to me and her mother. My days of fighting are over, but I sense yours are just beginning, young man.”

“I… Thank you, Mr. Nikos.” Jaune accepted the swaddled red silk and partially unwrapped it to reveal the glint of the bronze-colored alloy within. “I will avenge her,” Jaune said abruptly after a quiet moment staring at the circlet, looking back up into the eyes of Pyrrha’s parents as his tears finally fell. “That I can swear to the both of you.”

“I do not doubt that you will try, young man,” Mrs. Nikos said with the same kind smile I’d seen on the face of her daughter many times. “You’re a warrior, like her. Be safe, and if that’s the destiny you’ve chosen, I pray her spirit guides you on that path.”

Pyrrha watched the exchange somberly, without so much as a word. Ren and Nora bowed to Pyrrha’s parents, exchanging encouraging smiles before turning with Jaune to leave. The scene faded away, Pyrrha clearing her mind of it of her own volition. I was surprised by her willpower. “There isn’t much I can do to guide him from here.” A single tear tract stained her face, but she blinked back the others that were about to flow forth and sniffled. “I just hope he doesn’t do anything reckless.”

I hadn’t anything comforting to say, so I didn’t speak. Instead, I simply put my hand on her shoulder. She reciprocated the gesture, and we stood there in silence for what felt like a long time. Finally, I spoke. “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for being, Pyrrha. Don’t give up hope. Maybe there’s a way. There’s a lot we don’t know about this realm, a lot that I didn’t even realize I didn’t know. Like the Dreamworld, or like how you can hear my thoughts when we’re back in my memories. Maybe there really is a way to guide him, we just haven’t found it yet. We can try to find it, if that’s what you want to try to do.”

Pyrrha smiled, and I felt relieved to see her features soften. “No. My guidance isn’t what he needs. What he needs is to follow that big, dumb heart of his. I hope Ruby’s letter reaches him. We can go back to your memories, for now.”

“Alright,” I assented as I reflected on what Pyrrha had said. She’d just watched the end of her own funeral, saw the pain staining the faces of almost everyone she knew and loved. And here she was, standing strong, and in control of herself. I felt certain that by five days since my own death, I couldn’t have mustered that kind of strength if I searched every ounce of my soul to find it. I grinned, genuinely proud of my companion, before summoning back my memories of Beacon. I remembered the beginning of our mission to find Jade’s killer… And sighed as soon as I recalled the mess we were about to get ourselves into.

 


	13. Junior Detectives

**Chapter 13: Junior Detectives**

“Are you sure this guy you told us about is going to be willing to help us?” I asked Tai as Qrow and I followed our teammate through the geometric labyrinth of city streets in the northern commercial district of Vale.

“He better. Owes me a bunch of favors. I think it’s time I call ‘em all in,” Tai answered coolly.

“That noodle shop he used to practically live at is right up here. We’ll ask the shopkeep if he’s seen him, and if he hasn’t there’s about a dozen other places he’s likely to be.”

“Maybe we could hang out for a bit. If your boy ain’t there he might wander in while we’re eating.”

“Eating?” I said, looking exasperatedly at Qrow. “You just had lunch before our last class! Like two hours ago!”

“Boredom makes me hungry,” Qrow replied simply. “And I can smell the shop from here. Come on, it’ll be a team bonding opportunity. You’re all about that kind of stuff, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but…” The wafting odors of pork and chicken lo mein drifted past my nostrils. It _did_ smell fantastic. Uggh… I’m gonna get so fat. “Fine. If Tai doesn’t think it’ll slow—” Suddenly it was like Tai and Qrow disappeared. The saloon-style doors swung closed behind the pair of them as they zipped inside the restaurant before I could so much as get another word in. “—Slow us down too much,” I finished, shaking my head as I followed the boys into the restaurant.

The lunch rush must’ve been over. The place was empty, save for an elderly man with a balding head of long gray hair and a red apron who squinted at the three of us as I joined Qrow and Tai at the counter. “He isn’t here,” Tai said after scanning the room. “Oh well. Maybe he’ll show up while we eat.” Scanning the menu for a second, Tai turned to the shopkeep. “I’ll have the number three with sriracha.”

“Mmm-hmm,” The old shopkeep mumbled, before looking expectantly at Qrow and me.

“I, ah…” Qrow stared blankly at the menu. “Tai, what did you get?”

“Szechuan shrimp and noodle bowl.”

“Is it spicy?”

“What, don’t like hot food?”

“It’s not… No, I mean, I don’t _not_ like it, it’s just…”

“I mean, if you can’t handle it,” Tai said with a smirk.

“Don’t let him bait you like that, Qrow. If you don’t like spicy food, the number six looks good. That’s what I’m getting.”

“I can handle it,” Qrow insisted. “Yeah. I’ll have what he got. But with _more_ … What’s… uh, what’s the stuff that makes it spicy called again?” Qrow asked as an aside to Tai.

“Sriracha.”

“Sriracha. That’s it.”

Tai snickered, looking at the shopkeep. “You heard him, he said he wants his phoenix-style.”

The old man nodded, disappearing behind a set of drapes that covered the doorway to the kitchen. The sound of sizzling shrimp and sharp odor of szechuan and sriracha seasonings and sauces filled the air, before the old man zipped back out carrying three large bowls on one arm. He spun on his heel and lowered his shoulder, allowing the three orders to slide down onto the counter, each meal stopping directly in front of whomever had ordered it.

I heard Qrow stifle a cough as he sniffed at his szechuan noodles. I didn’t blame him. The spicy aroma was pretty overpowering. Tai snickered again. “Dig in,” he said, handing Qrow a pair of chop-sticks.

I leaned back on my barstool to look over at Tai. “You have a seriously messed-up sense of humor.”

“Actually, it’s not that bad,” Qrow said. Tai’s smirk in response to my comment was neutralized as soon as our teammate said that, and both my and Tai’s eyes snapped to the Branwen twin incredulously as we leaned forward again to watch him put away the intensely spicy meal. He was already halfway through, like he’d just inhaled it or something.

“What the…” Tai wondered aloud, looking at his bowl and then at Qrow’s. The orders hadn’t gotten mixed up. There was far more sriracha in Qrow’s order, twinging the noodles a dark red.

“That’s phoenix-style? There’s gotta be some mistake. You should be like… dying or something, right about now.”

Qrow raised his eyebrow as he slurped up a sauce-laden noodle and licked his lips before shrugging. “I mean, if you say so.”

“Hang on a minute,” Tai said, turning to the shopkeep. “There any way you can make this phoenix-style real quick? I’ll take the upcharge.”

“Rrrr. Mmmhm.” The shopkeep didn’t look pleased, but took Tai’s number three back and vanished into the kitchen once again. Seconds later he emerged, and my nose was once again assaulted by the pungently-spicy smell of whatever liquid hellfire the shopkeep had just mixed in to Tai’s noodles.

“Alright. He must’ve lightened up a bit since the last time I was here, maybe got some complaints or something…” Tai confidently shoveled a sizeable bite of noodles and shrimp into his mouth, chewed for a split second, and stopped. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, and his face and ears flushed bright red. He forced himself to keep chewing, swallowing finally and taking a deep breath. Qrow and I both looked at him as he struggled to keep his composure.

“It’s pretty good actually, Tai. Not nearly as spicy as the kind of stuff the cooks back in my clan could whip up, but yeah, not bad. Thanks for the recommendation.” Qrow had finished his meal, and was licking the extra sriracha from his chopsticks.

“Yeah, sure… Don’t…” Shopkeep handed Tai a glass of water, which he accepted and began to chug desperately. “Don’t mention it,” he finished between long sips. “Oh, uh, thanks,” he added to the shopkeep after he old man wordlessly handed him another glass, even before he’d finished the first.

“I got this, guys,” I said, extending my hand with a thirty-lien card, which the shopkeep took and swiped in the register by the door to the kitchen. “Keep the change,” I said as the register door popped open and the old man began to retrieve my change. He smiled and nodded, closing the drawer.

Tai pushed his bowl away after taking a few more much smaller, tentative bites. “You not gonna eat that?” Qrow asked.

“I, uhh, no. No, I don’t think so. I’m not actually that hungry right now. Summer was right, I mean. We just ate and all, I must’ve just overestimated how hungry I was.” Tai’s excuses for not being able to handle the heat faded into annoyed mumbles. I couldn’t help but share a snicker with Qrow. Tai’d been had by his own attempted practical joke. Qrow gleefully pulled Tai’s bowl over to himself and set to work polishing off the still mostly-full order.

I looked down at my own nearly-empty bowl, surprised and a little ashamed of myself for being able to finish it. “Alright. Well, we’ve eaten, and still no sign—"

“What the… Tai?” A new voice broke in from behind us.

The shopkeep growled something unintelligible at the newcomer, and Tai whirled around, shooting to his feet. “Tater. Knew your tubby butt would show up here sooner or later.” I turned around to see who my teammate was addressing and… Well, I had to say, the nickname fit.

The heavyset teenager who’d just pushed through the saloon doors looked from Tai, to me, to Qrow, and back to Tai. “Ah, crap… You’re here ‘cause a what happened to Jade…”

“You know about—HEY!” Tater had turned around and taken off right back out the way he’d came in. “Get him! He knows something!” Tai shouted as he burst from the restaurant and scanned the street. Qrow and I were right behind him.

“There he is!” Qrow saw our quarry sprinting down Eighth towards a construction site about a block away. The three of us took off after Tater, dodging around disgruntled citizens and occasionally leaping onto the street into traffic to avoid clumps of people that blocked the sidewalk.

“Get back here, Tater! We just want to talk!” Tai shouted. The fat kid was surprisingly quick, I thought as I pumped my legs to match Tater’s pace. Maybe spending a childhood running contraband had helped his conditioning or something. Tater reached the construction site, ignoring caution tape and warning signs as he tore past stacks of concrete beams and steel supports, ducking under heavy equipment and dodging past piles of dirt. We lost sight of him once or twice in the twilit maze of building materials. He sure seemed to recognize the most efficient way through. It could’ve been one of his smuggling routes, I thought to myself.

Tater leapt up on a stack of uninstalled iron piping, clambering over and out of view once again as we continued the chase. I made it over without issue, but the stack gave as both Tai and Qrow tried to clamber up it at the same time and they fell back, unable to keep their footing on the rolling cascade they found themselves on. “Dammit!” I heard Tai yell as he slid back, losing ground in the chase.

“Keep after him! I got an idea!” I shouted, turning invisible. During my brief moment atop the pile of piping, I’d noticed that there was only one exit from the fenced-off construction site, and that Tater was taking the long way around the mostly-finished bottom floor of the structural skeleton of the building that was being erected. He couldn’t get through or over the cinderblocks that had already been laid that constituted the outer wall of the first floor, but I could. Scourge was in my hand and in a heartbeat, I had flicked it around a second-floor I-beam and reeled myself up. Balancing atop what would become a floor support for the second story, I took off again, keeping my eyes peeled for movement. It didn’t take me long to spy our chunky quarry. I was now sprinting parallel to Tater’s course, even with him as he made it around the back side of the building with Tai and Qrow about twenty meters behind.

Looking ahead, I noticed a crane. Its cable was lowered and the hook was still attached to a load of steel-reinforced concrete floor slabs stacked right by the corner of the building. That would do. Somersaulting off the second floor, I landed at the load and hit the quick release that detached the loadbearing straps from the crane’s hook. Tater was close, looking back behind to gauge how close he was to losing my teammates. I wondered if he even noticed I wasn’t with them anymore. He was thirty meters from me, then twenty, then ten… Just as he had almost reached the corner, I heaved the heavy steel hook and pulley directly into his path.

The look on our quarry’s face was priceless as his head turned back to the front and he saw the unexpected obstacle that had swung directly into his path… Too late. “What the—” _THWUMP._ Tater ran full-tilt into the body of the pulley system, his face smashing into the cold steel with enough force to halt his upper body’s momentum, even as his feet and legs kept churning. The result was a cartoonish backflop that drove the wind from his chest and knocked him out cold.

I reappeared over him, whistling through my teeth and shaking my head. “Eeesh. That looked rough.” Despite my words, it was all I could do to keep from cracking up.  He probably deserved it, I thought to myself. Planting my foot on Tater’s shoulder to make sure he didn’t regain consciousness and take off again, I waited for Qrow and Tai to catch up. It didn’t take too long before they drew near, slowed their pace, and trotted over to me and my catch.

“Nice one, Summer,” Tai said with a grin.

“Yeah, sucker didn’t know what hit him,” Qrow laughed before looking at the hook that hadn’t quite stopped swinging yet. “Let’s hook him up. I’ll go hotwire the control panel on this thing so we can get him off the ground.”

“Why am I not surprised you know how to do that?” I asked rhetorically as Qrow tore off towards the cab of the crane. Tai sat Tater up, but it took both of us to get him to his feet.

“Ooof. You need to lay off the dumplings, tubby,” Tai grunted to a still-unconscious Tater as we supported the robust delivery-boy’s weight between us. I heard the crane’s motor turn over once, then twice, then cough to life as Qrow sparked the ignition lines. I saw him staring confusedly at the controls for a moment before he found the right button, and the hook dropped from face-level down to Tater’s waist. I looped the hook through his belt and gave Qrow the thumbs-up. “You sure that belt’ll hold him?” Tai wondered aloud.

“Holds his waistline in well enough,” I replied with a shrug.

“Good point,” Tai said with a grin.

Just then, Tater began to regain consciousness, groaning and gingerly touching the red mark that had begun to raise on his forehead. “Unnnnffff, my head. What hit me? Wait… What the hell—whoa, whoaaa lemme down lemmedownlemmeDOWN! Tai!” Tater’s feet kicked as he was hoisted off the ground and he stared half-murderously, half-pleadingly at Tai and me.

“You already guessed why we were coming to find you, Tater,” Tai said. “You know what happened to Jade. Fess up, and we’ll let you down.”

“My name’s not Tater! It’s Christof. Get it right!”

“Not really in the position to be making demands now, are we?” Qrow said as he strode back over to rejoin us.

“Damn you all. What is this, Tai? Who’re these losers?”

“These _losers_ ,” Tai said as he indicated us, “Are my teammates. I’m going to become a huntsman, Tater. I was willing to let this old life go. But one of you thugs had to go dragging me back into it, _just had_ to go and kill Jade. You knew I’d find out, knew it would bring me lookin’ for who did it. Well, I’m back. Now you’re gonna tell me everything you know—Right _NOW_ —or I’ve just found myself a new pig-shaped piñata.” One of Tai’s tonfas flashed to full extension from behind his back and he pressed the striking end up against Tater’s double chin as he threatened him. I tried not to look so surprised, but this was a side of Tai I hadn’t seen yet. He was scary when he was pissed.

“Heh, you and I both know you ain’t got it in—” _WHAM!_ “AAHG! That’s my knee! Ahhh-oooowww _wwww_!” Tater shouted and hissed with pain after Tai’s arm suddenly snapped around and the tonfa connected with the side of Tater’s kneecap.

“You rather it be your face? I can rearrange that for you too if you’d like—” Tai hauled back to strike again, but I grabbed his wrist.

“That’s enough, Tai. He’s helpless.” Tai grudgingly lowered his arm.

Tater grinned. “Haha, yeah. Listen to your girlfriend, blondie,” he taunted.

I rolled my eyes. “On second thought, you can hit him for that.” After another dull thump from another weapon impact and another string of curses from Tater, I stepped closer. “You might want to try cooperating. And I’m not either of these two’s girlfriend, just so that’s clear. I’m their team leader. I’m the only thing that’s gonna stop Tai from beating the crap out of you to find out what he wants to know, and that’s provided he even listens to me. So, don’t test his patience and we won’t have a problem.”

Christof growled under his breath. “Don’t expect much outta me. Runnin’ my mouth to little huntsman wannabes like you is a good way to end up like Jade.”

“Which is exactly why I left, idiot,” Tai growled.

“Ha. Nah, you left because you were a weak, scared little kid who went looking for family in the wrong places. Same reason a lot of us joined up, didn’t have nowhere else to go, and the Family was glad to have us little street rats. Only difference between you and the rest of us is that we ain’t cowards.”

“Coward, huh?” I could hear Tai’s tone hardening even more. “You’re the one who turned tail and ran the second you caught sight of me.”

“Ain’t you I’m trying to avoid havin’ a run-in with. I guarantee a monitor saw you by now, walking around in the open after that stunt you pulled a few years back. You haven’t been gone long enough. They’ll still remember your face, and the second your old boss hears you’re not still in juvy, he’ll send every enforcer he has. I should warn you, he’s got a few more people workin’ for him these days. He ranked up since you’ve been gone.”

“I’ll take my chances. Talk fast, and neither of us will be around when Frankie’s new goons show up.”

Looking around, Tater sighed. “Seems I can’t just get you to walk away.”

“We’re way past that, I can promise you.”

“So you’re gonna lemme down once I tell you what I know?”

“Probably.”

Rolling his eyes, Tater shrugged. “Fine. Just ‘cause you, me, and Jade was tight back in the day. That’s the only reason, got it?”

“Whatever,” Tai grumbled. “Just start talking already.”

“Aight. Jade was managing the northern wharfs in the industrial district. Frankie’s old job, back when you both worked for him, remember? Anyway, she got contacted by a buyer. New guy in town, she didn’t recognize him. Told me that he’d flashed a fat stack of cash in her face and wanted a delivery.”

“Of what? Drugs? Weapons?”

“No. Dust. He was very specific. Uncut burn, shock, freeze, wind… A few others I can’t remember. She put the order in with me, and I brought her the stuff yesterday morning. Whole big case, at least seventy-thousand worth. She went to deliver last night and… Well. You know the rest.”

“Buyer killed her. Ripped the merch,” Tai said reflectively.

“Sounds about right. It’s messed up. Especially ‘cause of how much it was worth. That’s big-time money we got cheated out of. Kinda cash the people at _The Table_ notice.”

Tai’s eyebrow raised as he shot a scowl at Tater. “Seriously? _That’s_ why you think it’s messed up?”

“Well, no, I…” Tater backtracked. “Yeah, ‘cuz of Jade and all that too.”

“What’s the Table?” I asked after Tai relented his threatening stare-down.

“Jīn Xiong’s inner circle. The people who really run this city,” Tai clarified.

“Oh yeah. Frankie’s boss will hear about that seventy-K sooner or later. And Mikael doesn’t take that kind of stuff lightly. That’s why Frankie’s put up his own bounty on the killer, and got every one of his enforcers and monitors looking for the guy. But they’ll still take time for you, don’t you worry.”

“I doubt it, if it means that much to ‘em.”

“Maybe you’re right, but is that a chance you wanna take? C’mon. I told you everything I know. Lemme down, I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry. Hang tight a sec,” Tai shot back, giving Tater a shove to start him swinging like a pendulum before stepping away and turning to Qrow and me.

“Sounds like the killer doesn’t belong to the Xiong clan, like we thought,” Qrow said.

“Not if they’re as serious as he says about finding him. But we can’t rule out that it wasn’t an inside job just yet.”

“What are our other options?” I asked. “What about one of those other families?”

“Tsov and Tao clans? They’d be risking all-out war with the Xiongs. That’s not something I think they can win.”

“Even if they worked together?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Even if they did, though?”

“Summer, it would never happen. Trust me. They hate each other almost as much as they hate the Xiongs. And they’re no where near strong enough, even together. They’d be annihilated.”

“Still here, by the way,” Christof interrupted from behind us.

“Shuddup, Tater,” Tai shot back.

“Still not my name!”

“Ignore him,” Qrow said. “Now, what else we got? Fat boy over there said Jade told him she didn’t recognize the buyer.”

“Doesn’t tell us much. If they guy’s new in town, that means the only other person who might’ve gotten a good look at him would be that weapons dealer, if he ever even dealt with him at all.”

“It sounds a lot less likely given what we know now, but it’s still our best lead,” I said thoughtfully.

“Agreed,” Tai replied, before turning back to Tater. “Listen. Who’s running the weapons trade right now in the commercial district? Not the section-level managers. The supplier. I need a name and a location. Now.”

“Are you crazy? No, scratch that, I already know the answer. And to answer that stupid question, no, I don’t know. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“You’re lying. You know exactly who it is we’re looking for, AND you know where we can find ‘em.”

“So what if I am lyin’? I still ain’t tellin’ you a thing.”

“Dammit, we’re out here looking for the sick piece of trash that _murdered_ Jade, and you don’t even have the _decency_ to help us out! She was _your_ friend too, you said so yourself a minute ago!” Tai’s anger was starting to get the better of him. I could see the back of his neck flush red and veins start popping out in his temples.

“Tai, calm down,” I said, grabbing his arm in case he tried to swing at Tater again.

“ _No,_ Summer. Don’t tell me to _calm down_. You don’t understand, neither of you could.”

“That ain’t true, man. Raven and me do understand,” Qrow interjected.

“Doubt it. Besides, Raven’s opinion ain’t one I care too much about right now. Let go of me, lemme just beat it out of this idiot. We’ll get what we want.”

I gripped Tai’s arm more tightly. “Tai. I said no. I told you, Huntsmen are better than this.”

“To you, maybe. Idealism doesn’t get you too far on these streets though. Sometimes, things just have to get _messy_!” With that, Tai shrugged me off and lunged at Christof. I saw the smug look on our captive’s face melt as Tai surged forward. Before Qrow or I could react, a whirlwind of strikes slammed into Christof from both sides as Tai leapt, spinning through consecutive flying knee-strikes and a salvo of punches to his body and face.

“TAI! _No!_ ” Scourge was in hand in a flash. I checked quickly to make sure I had no dust reservoir selected, and flicked the weapon out. It caught Tai’s ankle, and I yanked to trip him. As he fell, Qrow jumped on his back, putting him in a rear choke and holding on for dear life as Tai thrashed loose from his entanglement and tried to out-grapple our teammate. In a wrestling match, Tai had Qrow outmatched in both strength and technique. Qrow wouldn’t be able to hold out long. I had to think fast. We needed to get through to Tater without beating him to a bloody pulp. Suddenly, and idea popped into my head. “Tai! Tai. Listen.” I moved over to where Tai had pushed Qrow up against the wall of the building and was close to slipping the choke and turning the tables in the scuffle. Taking a knee, I looked my teammate in the eyes and snapped my fingers in his face to get his attention. “Let him go, Qrow. Let him go. Tai. Listen, right now. Give me three minutes. After that, you can beat on him all you want, alright?”

“What?” I heard Tater ask fearfully from where he hung behind us.

Tai pushed away from Qrow and looked at me warily before grunting. “Alright, Summer. Three minutes. But we’ve wasted enough time as it is. Whatever you’re gonna do, hurry up so I can get on with giving this selfish little douche what he deserves.”

I sighed. “Thank you. I’ll be right back.” With that, I sprinted back down the way Qrow and Tai had come through the construction site, with Qrow watching me go confusedly. I had to get back to that noodle shop, and fast. Bursting back out onto Eighth Street, I skidded to a halt outside the shop’s doors. Pushing through hard enough to slam the free-swinging doors against the inner walls of the shop drew a disgruntled growl from the shopkeep.

“Sorry. Listen, the fat guy we chased outta here. He comes here a lot, right? I need an order of his regular. _Fast_.”

“Hmmmm… Mmmhhm,” the old man grunted, before zipping off into the kitchen. He emerged seconds later with two full bowls of piping hot noodles and a plate of dumplings and egg-rolls.

“Wow,” was all I could manage to say at first. “Alright. Put it on his tab. It’s important! Thanks!”

The shopkeep rattled off another unintelligible series of grunts that might’ve been, “Now, waitaminute,” or something to that effect as I bolted, balancing both bowls and the plates of food on my arms. Good thing Qrow wasn’t nearby, I’d probably have dropped this stuff already. I seriously hoped Tai hadn’t decided to start beating up Tater before the three minutes were up. This little mission had him pretty riled up already, and I honestly couldn’t say I blamed him. But I knew I was right to make him stay his hand. I arrived back at the crane just as Tai stood up and began to step towards Christof. I was cutting it close.

“Hey, Tater. You said you were hungry, right?” I called out just before Tai could wind up to start punching.

Tater’s head snapped around so quick I thought he’d just about broken his own neck to see what I was carrying. His eyes were wide open and pinned to the bowls of food. His stomach growled and his nostrils flared as he began to sniff the aroma that wafted to him from the massive meal. “That’s… That’s…” He reached out for me, but I was just out of arm’s length, and as he leaned out he almost flipped upside-down. Shaking his head and righting himself, Tater grumbled, “Nice try, sweetheart. That ain’t gonna work on me.” As if to punctuate his attempt at self-denial, his stomach growled again, even more loudly. “Dammit,” I heard him mutter under his breath.

“Oh, so you’re not hungry anymore? I bet Tai would want some.”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact,” Tai had calmed down, and I was relieved to hear a note of amusement, rather than ire, in his voice at my interrogation technique. He grabbed an eggroll from the plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing loudly and murmuring exaggeratedly about how delicious the food was. I saw a little drool drip from the corner of Tater’s mouth, and irritation that Tai of all people was enjoying the meal with such impunity right before him.

“Dammit,” Tater said more loudly this time. “lemme get some. That’s messed up, eating in front of a starving man.”

“ _You’re_ starving?” Qrow laughed. “Lemme try one of those little doughy-looking things. They look good.” Tai threw Qrow a dumpling with a pair of chopsticks, which our teammate caught in his mouth. “ _Mmmfff_. Theesh rearry arh goohd,” he said pointedly to Christof around his mouthful of food. The appetizers had all but disappeared in a few moments.

“Awh… You two are gonna eat all of it…” Tater grumbled. I could see the conflict in his eyes as he searched the surroundings for any Xiong enforcers or monitors that might hear him drop the info we needed. “Alright, alright, alright stop! Enough, save me the rest.” To me, he added, “That’s playing dirty, girlie.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. “But at least Tai didn’t have to break every bone in your body. Now. Weapons supplier for the north side of the city. Who is it, where are they. Now.”

“I swear, I’m so dead if they find out I said anything…” Christof said before sighing. “Alright. Warehouse four-two-nine, northside wharfs. Underground stockpile. Couldn’t tell you how to get in, I honestly don’t know. The guy you want goes by Trigger, but his real name is Vasily. Guy’s got a rep, though. Used to be an assassin, but word is he got himself a wife and kid, and wanted to retire to a safer job. He’d done good work for his underbosses in the Family, so Jīn Xiong let him go from shooting the guns to supplying them.”

“See? You can be reasonable,” I said. “Qrow? Let our hungry friend down.”

Qrow snapped off a sarcastic salute before trotting over to the crane cab. The hook lowered, and the second Christof’s feet hit the ground he pulled the hook from his belt and dashed over to me, snatching the bowls of noodles and staring lustfully, if also a little disturbingly, at his reward for cooperating. He readied the pair of chopsticks Tai tossed him, dug them into the mass of noodles, opened his mouth with an ear-to-ear grin of anticipation spread across his face… Just before a bullet zipped past my ear and shattered the bowl in his hands. Noodles slithered through Tater’s fingers and plopped into the dirt as he stared brokenly at the ruined meal, not seeming to register the fact that we were now under fire.

“Crap! Behind us!” Tai shouted. “Enforcers!” He was right. About two dozen men in black trench coats, some with body armor and each armed with a variety of weapons, stormed the rear entrance of the construction site. I heard more chatter from the direction of the front entrance, too. We were surrounded.

A big, deeply tanned man sporting a communications earpiece and dark, thick-rimmed sunglasses stepped forward, his pistol pointed straight at me as his men fanned out and targeted the four of us. “Time’s up, Taiyang! Stupid of you to show your face back in this town. Frankie’s got some questions for you’s. That was a warning shot, next one goes between your girlfriend’s eyes.”

“I’m getting really, _really_ tired of people saying that,” I growled.

“I got right flank. On your signal,” Tai muttered under his breath before putting his hands up in mock surrender and began sidling towards the dozen or so drawn guns that were trained directly on his face... “Tommy? Tommy, that you? Been a while, man. Still workin’ for that old sleazebag Frankie?”

I cast a quick glance at Qrow, who was standing just outside the crane cab with his hands also raised as if he’d given up. A slight nod from him was enough to confirm the opposite was true. We didn’t have long before the other half of the enforcer squad was on us. We had to go _now._ Without another moment’s hesitation, I activated my aura and disappeared, white rose petals scattering on the wind as the big guy Tai identified as ‘Tommy’ gasped his surprise.

“What the— _FIRE_!” He shouted, before Thorn’s unseen blade sliced his pistol’s barrel clean off.

“There, made it easier to conceal for you, big guy,” I taunted as Tommy stared at his sundered weapon in disbelief. He recovered his senses quickly, though. His next words scared me a little.

“There you are!” He could see me? As if in answer to my question, the leader of the hit squad swung, not a blind punch like I was used to avoiding from people, but an actual aimed attack that caught my shoulder as I twisted out of the way. It would’ve gotten me in the face if I hadn’t dodged, I thought. Backing away, I twisted in midair and kicked one of the other enforcers unlucky enough to get in my way in the back of the head.

How the heck was he… Suddenly I noticed something. His sunglasses. I’d known the rims had looked a little beefier than normal, but it was more than that. The left arm of the shades had a rounded bulge built into the side: A sensor package. The thug’s eyewear utilized augmented-reality tech… Cutting-edge a few years back when Dad and I had lived in Atlas. His contact with the Atlesian R&D department had shown me something like that, only built into the armored visor of an Atlesian Marine’s headgear rather than a pair of sunglasses. I remembered then what I’d been told: Besides targeting and communications, he sensor package was capable of detecting the dark energies that rippled off of grimm and of remotely scanning and reading an opponent’s aura-level. Not only could the enforcer see me, he could tell how well my aura was holding up and where I concentrated the energy in preparation for my strikes. This wasn’t good.

I had to think fast. Tai and Qrow were engaged with the mob on either flank, and seemed to be doing fairly well. Already a few of the Xiong enforcers were out cold all around, some with very clearly dislocated joints and badly broken bones. My focus was the group closest to me, and the leader with his augmented sight. As I circled and weighed my options, I noticed something. ‘Tommy’ was following my movement, but in a disjointed sort of manner, not tracking me smoothly at all with his gaze. A weakness in the system, perhaps? Like a very low refresh rate for the scans put out by his sensors? I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed likely. I had to make my movement more erratic. I sprinted towards Tommy, juking left as he swung again, this time with a kukri he’d drawn from beneath his jacket. A pile of cinder blocks to my opponent’s right served as a kickoff point as I slid, and I used it to change direction back across to his left before the sunglasses could scan again.

It worked. Tommy’s head continued to track right, and I saw the surprise register when he realized I wasn’t where he thought I should be when the sensors pinged once again. I was already behind him. Scourge was out and around his throat in a heartbeat, and I flicked the trigger once, retracting the braid and bringing me close as I swung around behind the lead enforcer. As he struggled to undo the invisible stranglehold, I reached over his ear and snagged his sunglasses. “Yoink!” I exclaimed as I tossed the shades into the air and sliced them in half with a quick spin of Thorn’s blade around its chassis.

“Dammi— _HHhhGGGGRRRRRKKKRrrrrGGrRRKKK_!” A charge of electricity from Scourge’s contacts stunned Tommy, taking him out of the fight as he fell on his face. I released the braid carefully, not wanting to slit his throat, and kicked the machete away from his hand in case he regained consciousness, turning to deal with the remaining enforcers. The first group had been all but eliminated with Tai and Qrow finishing off stragglers, but the second team that had approached from behind was upon us and beginning to open fire. I didn’t see any more pairs of reality-augmenting sunglasses with this team. I charged in, using Scourge to gain a height advantage by slinging it over a second-story I-beam like I had earlier before plunging into the middle of the group as they fanned out and took cover from Tai and Qrow’s return fire. I had to be careful not to get tagged by my own teammate’s buckshot. I hoped they could sense my position well enough to not hit me, but I stayed low just in case, sweep-kicking and incapacitating the rearmost enemies first as they focused their fire ahead.

By the time the second group realized someone was culling their numbers from behind, it was too late. There were only five or six left, and as they ducked behind their cover and stared in disbelief at the unconscious bodies of their fellow enforcers, I couldn’t help but snicker. “How the—” _FWUMP_! “AHHggh! My FACE— _ACCccckKK_!” I’d kicked the muzzle of that thug’s rifle hard enough to slam it into his forehead, before swinging around the front side the dirt pile he’d taken refuge behind and garroting his throat with a length of my braid between barbs, just long enough to knock the poor guy out. As much as these guys probably deserved it, killing them was not an option.

“Save some for us, Summer!” Qrow called as he and Tai bum-rushed the remaining enforcers, who looked at each other in a panic before turning tail and running back the way they’d come, just as the blue lights of police hovercruisers and the wail of their sirens filled the air around the construction site.

“You guys okay?” I asked as I became visible once again. My aura was nearly burnt out from holding my semblance that long, and I felt a wave of mental exhaustion wash through my head as I lowered my defensive field.  I noticed then that Qrow had a cut on his forearm that was bleeding pretty good. “Qrow… You’re bleeding.” Reaching into my medical pouch, I withdrew a bandage and pressed it to the wound, clotting agents and painkillers within the cloth reacting to the touch of blood and sealing the wound in a flash as I tied the dressing down.

“It’s nothing, really,” Qrow said. Was it just me, or did he blush as I cared for the injury? Whatever. Probably my imagination.

“How’d it happen?” I asked.

“Ahhh, it’s stupid. Didn’t see a guy behind me take a swing with his little knife. Tried that trick you two use a lot, shifting my aura to get more power into my strikes. Guess I overdid it and drained it completely out on my left as I swung with my right.”

“We’ll have to work on that,” Tai said, clapping Qrow on the shoulder. “You fought good though, for a skinny little stick-figure. Some of these guys can be pretty tough.”

“Who’re you calling a—”

“Guys. Where’d Christof go?” I interrupted.

“Dunno. Probably slithered off somewhere when he saw the cops. Guarantee you he’s got warrants out on him.” As Tai spoke, a team of eight V.P.D. officers rounded the corner of the construction site’s back entrance, weapons sweeping across the two-dozen enforcers who were just beginning to regain consciousness and take stock of their various injuries.

“Nobody move!” The leader of the police formation called out, his combination taser and .45 caliber duty firearm swinging around and steadying on Tai.

“Guys, relax,” Tai replied. “We got ‘em. Hope you brought enough cuffs.”

“Oh, we did,” The officer to his left said with a smirk. I didn’t like the sound of that.

Tai was visibly anxious now, hands going back to his hips where he’d stowed his weapons. “What is this? We’re students from Beacon, we just had a run in with a bunch of Xiong Family enforcers… We’re the _good_ guys!”

“Xiong Family? Never heard of ‘em. Looks like you kids just beat up a bunch of innocent construction workers to me.”

“What?” Suddenly I realized what was going on. I shouldn’t have dropped my aura. Before I could raise it again, I felt two barbs pierce my unarmored right shoulder and left waist beneath my armor. Searing pain as the taser probes jolted me with fifty-thousand volts brought me to my knees as I grimaced through the pain, trying to yank one of the wires and break the immobilizing circuit that was coursing though my body. Before I could, another officer extended a shock baton and planted it against the left side of my neck. An explosion of pain and a flash like pure-white light like fireworks blasted through my nerves and vision and I felt myself drop like a sack of potatoes.

I could hear Tai and Qrow grunting against the pain, but their resistance stopped in the same way mine had, at the end of a flurry of stun-baton strikes, and they each collapsed, twitching as we were all cuffed and our weapons were taken. I felt Scourge and Thorn ripped from their magnetic holsters and tried to protest, but I couldn’t even make my vocal cords work except to issue an unintelligible groan.

“What’s that? I can’t hear you. You gotta SPEAK UP!” I saw the lead officer from the team of crooked cops turn away from shaking Tommy’s hand and cock his leg back. That was the last image I remembered before his booted strike caught me in the side of the head and I was knocked out cold.

 


	14. Unexpected Rescue

**Chapter 14: Unexpected Rescue**

I woke to the sound of shouting, Tai’s voice I thought, though I couldn’t really tell through my pounding headache. I could vaguely feel myself being dragged down a hallway by my arms, before a painfully loud metal-on-metal clang followed by the creak of heavy hinges reverberated through my skull. I looked up, the effort needed to even raise my head from where it hung proving to be quite difficult. The sound had been the bolt on a holding cell slamming open and the door swinging ajar as one of the officers from earlier jolted Tai inside with a stun baton.

“Get in there, kid. And quit your hollerin’, for the gods’ sake. This ain’t even your Lieutenant-stepfather-whatever’s precinct. He ain’t comin’ to save you.”

“You don’t know that!” Tai shouted back in protest from within the cell.

“Mmm,” the crooked cop murmured in sarcastic consideration. “Yeah, yeah I do actually. Now shuddup or I’ll make those cuffs even tighter. Oh, and look, little miss invisible’s awake. Put her and the other one in the cell across from the runaway here. Frankie’ll wanna talk to them separately.”

“Got it, boss,” I heard one of the cops that had a grip on my upper arm say. The door of the holding cell on the other side of the narrow hall from Tai’s creaked open and I was thrust rudely inside. My legs still didn’t want to work quite right, so I just tumbled to the cold, hard concrete floor. “Oops. Dropped her,” the officer laughed.

“Assholes,” Qrow growled at the two uniformed thugs who’d been dragging me.

“Ooohoho _hooo._ This one’s got a mouth on him,” I heard the ranking turncoat cop say. A long, drawn-out crackle as Qrow was zapped by another officer’s baton followed by a profanity-laced exclamation of pain from my teammate as he was forced into the cell with me caused all four guards to chuckle.

“Wow. You kiss your momma with that mouth?” One taunted.

“Or is your mommy dead in a ditch somewhere, like your buddy’s over there?” Another asked.

The door slammed shut and the bolt clanked. I sat up in time to see Qrow ram it with his shoulder. It was no use. The hardened steel of the door was utterly unyielding. “You guys better hope I don’t get outta here alive.”

“Big talk for a skinny little guy like you. Sit tight. Just ring the bell for room service.”

Qrow looked around. “What bell?”

“Exactly!” The four cops again exploded into raucous laughter as they walked off down the hall, through the checkpoint at the end of the holding cells and out of sight.

Qrow turned immediately once the cops were out of sight and knelt by my side. The fog I’d been in since coming to was leaving me, but every muscle in my body still felt tight and sore. “Summer. Hey, Summer. Petals, you okay?”

“Ugghh. I think. Everything hurts, but either I’m getting used to it or getting better.”

“I know how you feel.”

“How’s your arm?” I asked, remembering the cut he’d suffered in the fight earlier.

“Seriously? You’re worried about that?”

“Course I am. Kinda my job to worry about you guys,” I said with a wan smile.

Qrow huffed, but returned my grin. “It’s fine. They ripped the bandage off, but whatever was in it had already helped stop the bleeding.” Qrow turned to look through the small, steel-barred window in our door, and I saw the stains of clotted blood smeared all over the back of his shirt from where the wound had been pressing against his back. The bleeding hadn’t stopped at all, actually. He’d probably just said that to get me to ease my concern. I noticed then, too: the cuffs Qrow had on weren’t normal shackles. These were bulkier, and had large black boxes with blinking red lights on each side. “Tai, can you hear me?” Qrow called.

“Yeah,” came the muffled response.

“What do you think happens next?”

“Well, the guy who looked like he was in charge said Frankie was going to want to talk to you two. That could mean a few different things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, there’s the off chance that he actually wants to talk to you. But don’t count on it. Most likely, they’re gonna want to know why we pumped Tater for info, and what he told us. Either you guys tell him, or their gonna try and beat it out of you. And these guys clearly don’t really have that same moral issue we ran into earlier.”

“Our aura will help,” Qrow said in reply.

“Try activating it. You can’t, these cuffs have some kind of interrupter built in, like they were designed with rogue huntsmen in mind.”

“Well,” Qrow said after I saw him concentrate to try and bring up his defensive field. “That sucks.”

“Yep,” Tai agreed. “I’m sorry for dragging you guys into this.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said as I tried to stand. Qrow helped me up, and I leaned against him as I tried to look through the window. It was too high for me to see through, even on my tip-toes.

“Need a boost? I could ask if they’ve got a stool.” Qrow jibed. I elbowed him.

“I’d hit you with it if my hands weren’t cuffed,” I grunted, only half-jokingly. Turning back to the bars on the little window about a foot above my eye-level, I continued. “Don’t apologize, Tai. We knew what we were getting ourselves into. None of us had any idea some cops were in the Family’s pocket.”

“They sure didn’t have any when I escaped a few years back. Jīn Xiong must be trying to tighten his grip on Vale. Kent must not know either, he never said anything about it.”

“I wonder why Professor Ozpin doesn’t do anything about it. He must know, right? I mean, he’s got a seat on the council and everything. You’d think he’d have sent huntsmen in to take the organization down by now.”

“I don’t know,” Tai said with a sigh. “It’s like the unspoken truth in Vale. Everyone knows the gangs exist, but nobody acknowledges them. It’s like it’s just part of life here.”

“It’s the same thing with Mistral,” Qrow said after a second. “Bottom levels of the city are full of people like m… Them. People like them. Everyone knows it, but nobody does anything.”

“Vacuo too. Well, I mean, it’s not so hidden there. Pretty much everybody’s a thug. Maybe...” I paused, considering all the places I’d lived over the years. The same was true of all except Atlas, really, and even Mantle had its rough spots, with faunus labor gangs and the like. “Maybe that’s just the way the world is. The enemy outside the walls is too dangerous for us to waste time dealing with the ones within. Maybe that’s the way it has to be. Maybe it’s dumb to think we can change anything.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Tai’s voice echoed from the other cell. “I just hope you two get a chance to keep trying.”

“You talk like you’re not gonna be right in the middle of it with us, man,” Qrow said.

“Nobody runs from the Xiong’s. Nobody. Once you’re branded, it’s for life. I imagine they’re going to give me a choice. Join back up, or… Well.”

“You think they’ll kill you?” I asked, realizing that was exactly what he meant almost before I finished asking the question.

“Probably. I’m not going back to work for them. Swore it to myself.”

“Tai, don’t be stupid. We’re not gonna let that happen to you,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. Even I could tell I came off as less than convincing. Before I could say anything else, the door to the cellblock clanked open and several sets of booted footfalls thumped towards us. A sliding panel clanked over our window and locked just as Qrow leaned forward to see who was coming. All we could do was listen as Tai’s cell door opened.

“Alright, kid. Boss’s waiting for ya. Come on.”

“Hey, move it. I ain’t got all day,” another voice added. A grunt followed by the heavy thud of someone’s bodyweight slamming against our door caused me to clench my fists with rage.

“They’re gonna pay for screwing with my team,” I growled.

“Not much we can do from in here,” Qrow said as we listened to Tai being led away.

As soon as the door to our cell block clanked closed, I leaned back against the wall and sank to the floor. “I know.” Thinking for a minute, I added, “As soon as they come to grab us, we’ll try and take them all out. One of them will have a key to these cuffs, then we can at least get our auras up. Then we find our weapons and get Tai before… Before they beat him up too bad.”

“Some plan,” Qrow said, rolling his eyes.

“You got a better one?”

“No.” Qrow sighed in acknowledgement after a moment.

I tried to sit patiently, but knowing what was probably happening to Tai somewhere in this building was too much to bear. I stood, pacing, before kicking the door as hard as I could. “I can’t just sit here! They’re gonna kill him! We need a way out of here _NOW_!”

Suddenly, the panel over our cell door’s window slid open. I froze… Had they left a guard outside? “You could ask for a little help,” the voice belonging to our eavesdropper replied. I recognized the flat, sarcastic tone and stared at the door in disbelief.

“Raven?” Qrow asked, clearly every bit as surprised as I was.

“Obviously,” our fourth teammate shot back.

“You’re on the wrong side of the door,” her brother retorted, clearly relieved despite his sardonic comment.

“Not exactly an exact science, you know. Not like I’ve ever been here before, idiot,” came the reply, before the window again clanked shut and I heard that strange humming sound emitted by one of Raven’s portals. A red line like a slash through thin air appeared beside Qrow, which then widened into a pulsating ellipse that Raven stepped through before it blinked shut and disappeared. “Looks like you three really stepped in a mess, huh?”

Qrow threw his arms up in exasperation. “You let it close? What are you doing? Now we can’t get out of here! You should’ve let us come out instead of coming in here to gloat!”

“Calm down. You’re not the only one I have a connection to, little brother.”

“Who else?” Qrow demanded.

“Hm. Well, our teammates, of course.”

My eyes narrowed. “Since when?”

“Does it matter?” Raven replied with a shrug. “I might not _do_ the whole ‘team player’ thing, but while I’m stuck at this school I figured the links could be useful. Looks like I was right, as usual.”

“Then we can’t waste any time,” I said urgently, turning my hands towards Raven. “Cut these cuffs off us and let’s go stop ‘em from killing Tai. C’mon, c’mon!”

Raven feigned shock at my request. “But that would be breaking the law, Team Leader. You three were arrested for crimes against whoever really runs this stupid city, right? So helping you escape from jail is—”

“We don’t have time for your sarcasm, Raven.”

“Alright, fine. First things first though, cheerleader. I think you and me need to come to an understanding.”

“So, you’re ready to apologize for trying to kill me back in the room?”

“I was hardly trying to kill you. That was simply some light sparring. And anyway, no. Not even close.”

“What then?” Whatever Raven’s reason, though part of me was genuinely curious, for the most part I was humoring her so she’d just hurry up and release us.

“Simple. I snuck all that stuff Qrow and I stole back to whoever we got it from. Last night, while you all were gone. Qrow told me you weren’t going to get campus security involved, which is ultimately why I came to help you. My brother and I owe you that much it seems, as much as I hate being here anyway. That, and I feel like Tai is justified in trying to get some revenge for his girl’s death.”

“So, you’re seeing this as getting even, huh? In that case you owe me for saving your life back in Ancient Vale too.”

“Sorry, but I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the crap, Raven. She sliced you out of that webbing when your sword was out of reach back in the cistern. That spider woulda come back and finished you off if she hadn’t and you know it.”

Raven shot her brother one of her by-now-trademarked looks of pointed apathy. “That was _your_ fault anyway. Whatever. Fine. So I’ll owe you one more after this. But I need you to promise me something as well. Stop trying to force your naïve little ‘ethical code’ or whatever on my brother and me. You might have a thing about dying with your principles intact, but we don’t, and that’s how we intend to survive once we’re out of here.”

I rolled my eyes. “So long as you let Qrow make that decision for himself, we’ve got a deal.”

“You’re in a terrible negotiating position, you know that?”

“We know, Raven, but she’s right,” Qrow chimed in. “I’ll make my own calls from here on out.”

Raven sighed exasperatedly. “Just what we need. Fine. He’s always been free to make his own decisions anyway, he just didn’t because he knows where the brain power is in our little dynamic duo.”

“Good, it’s settled then. Now get us out of these things,” Qrow said impatiently, clearly at issue with his sister’s ‘brain power’ jab but knowing a debate only wasted time at this point. Tai was probably getting beaten bloody a few rooms away.

“Hold still,” Raven replied as she drew a new blade that glowed a weird, indigo-blue color, like the hottest flames in a blast furnace or plasma torch. “This one’ll burn your wrists a little since your auras are down, but you’ll be able to heal quickly once those interrupters are gone.

She wasn’t kidding. Searing pain for a split second each in my right and left wrists as Raven melted through the aura interrupters and locking pawls of each side of my cuffs caused me to flinch, but once I again felt my aura crackle over my body, and the pain numbed as the restraints clattered to the floor. I looked at them where they lay. The spot where Raven had touched her blades to the locks had completely vaporized, and the metal around the cuts was still glowing a dull red that was fading fast. Whatever combination of dust that was, I needed it for Scourge. Ooohhh, Thorn too. The nerdy side of my mind raced through different ways I could apply heat like that in my weapons before I shook my head and refocused. Maybe that would be the second favor I’d call in from Raven once we all got out of this mess.

Once Raven finished freeing her brother, Qrow and I looked to Raven. “I’ll be the first in once that portal opens. We don’t know how many guys will be in there, and I’ll be invisible so I’ll have a chance to get a good position,” I said.

“Don’t be dumb. I’m the only one with a weapon, I’ll be the first one in,” Raven responded. “I’ll hold the portal open for a bit longer than normal too. Try to kick at least one or two goons right back into this cell.”

“Fine. Whatever. Qrow and I will try to disarm some of the guards too. Go for their stun batons and give them a little payback. We go in fast, and we try not to kill anyone.”

“No promises,” Raven countered.

“Did… Did you two just strategize together?” Qrow asked, dumfounded. Raven and I looked at each other, then simultaneously back at our teammate.

“Shut up, Qrow.”

“No, that’s not what… No.”

The two of us voiced our denial in unison, and Qrow just grinned. Crouching down and clenching his fists, he prepared to spring through the portal as soon as it opened before answering. “Whatever. You totally did. Now are we going or what?”

“I really hate you sometimes,” Raven grumbled. “Alright. Three… Two… _NOW_!” She was lunging almost before her sword was in motion to cut the rift. Qrow was right behind his sister, and I activated my semblance and brought up the rear, keeping tight to the two of them.

The first thing I saw on the other side was a scarred man in a pinstriped designer jacket and fedora pressing a pistol to the back of Tai’s head as the latter slumped defeatedly against the table that was bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. I could only assume he had been split seconds from executing our badly-beaten teammate. His shock and surprise, evident on his face as he turned towards Raven and Qrow, was the only thing staying his trigger finger… Until I leapt up onto the table and drop-kicked him in the jaw. The pistol went off, but too high as the man I could only assume was Frankie recoiled from the strike he hadn’t seen coming. The bullet pierced the table in front of Tai’s face as my teammate struggled to look up.

“What the—” One of the goons in the room, a regular mob enforcer by the looks of him, managed to exclaim before Raven followed through on her plan and roundhouse kicked him straight back into the cell. One of the crooked cops followed, sailing back as Qrow hip-tossed him. As the cop’s hand disappeared into the portal, Qrow grabbed his pistol, snapping the man’s finger backward in the trigger guard and ripping it from his grasp just as the rift closed and sealed the two men in our recently-vacated accommodations down in the cell block.

I turned back to the opposite side of the room. Three enforcers and two more cops, one of which I recognized as the leader who had tased Tai and kicked me in the face earlier, were the only threats left. I surged across the table for the lead cop, eager to settle the score. He never knew what hit him. I did, though: my boot, straight to the bridge of his nose. A stream of blood from his shattered nasal passages arced through the air as his head snapped back. I let the momentum of my kick carry me into a backflip, and as my body rotated through the acrobatic assault I caught his stun baton when it fell from his unconscious hand. I can only imagine what must’ve been going through the other four criminal’s minds as their compatriot was slammed back by an unseen force against the two-way mirror at the back of the room and his baton disappeared mid-air as soon as I gripped it. Whatever they’d thought was happening, they barely had time to react, that was for certain. Between my attack and Qrow leaping in from my right with the taser pistol he’d taken from the first cop, the four of them were either twitching on the ground or out cold from blunt-force trauma as my teammate and I stunned, pistol-whipped, and tased right through them in the blink of an eye.

“Oh no you don’t,” I heard Raven admonish from back behind Tai, and I turned just in time to see her jab downward with one of her ice-blue blades. The ensuing wail of pain and flurry of curses from Frankie was enough to reassure me that she hadn’t just run him through, but the flailing of his feet that I could see from around the table and exclamations of shock and agony were enough to make me curious to see what she _had_ done. I stepped over the lead cop and the other brutalized crooks, allowing myself to reappear as I rounded the corner of the table and stared at Raven’s handiwork. Frankie’s right arm was pinned to the cracked concrete floor of the interrogation room, with Raven’s blade sticking down between the two bones of his forearm and spikes of ice stabbing up through his flesh from below where the blade had impacted the ground. The pistol Tai’s old boss had been about to murder our teammate with was still in his hand and aimed straight at Tai where he sat, but with every muscle in his arm either frozen or severed, he couldn’t pull the trigger. “What? I didn’t kill him,” Raven said as I shot her a look.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“No, I wasn’t. He deserves that. Cuff ‘em all, Qrow. Tight.”

“Already on it,” Qrow answered with a grin. I heard one of the officers that Qrow was securing wince and groan in pain as his own cuffs were locked as far as they’d go about his wrists, pinching the nerves and grinding on bone.

“Tai. Tai!” I said, kneeling beside him as he looked at me through one half-open and bloodshot black eye. The other was swollen shut, a red mark the same shape as the underside of the frame of Frankie’s gun stamped across it.

“H-hey, Summer. Man, I’m glad to see you guys… How… How do I look? Pretty bad, huh?”

“Nah, you look great, blondie,” I reassured him. That was a lie, needless to say. The bad guys hadn’t stopped with Tai’s face. All over his arms were contusions from blunt-force blows and burns from stun batons that I could only imagine continued all across his back beneath his shirt.

“You kids are dead, you hear me?” Frankie growled from the floor.

“One sec. Gotta take care of something real quick,” I told Tai. Standing, I turned to face Frankie. “You used to be his boss?”

“None of your business, girlie.”

“Now, I can promise that’s not the attitude you wanna be pulling right about now. Wanna know why?” I nodded subtly to Raven as I asked the question.

“Heh. Why? Enlighten m—” _FWUMP_! Raven’s boot slammed into the back of Frankie’s head as he glared up at me, causing him to bite his tongue and howl in pain. When he looked back up, blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth, and he spit a mouthful out before growling his defiance. “ARRR _GGrrrrrrhhh_! You’ll pay for that! Do you know who I am? Who I work for? We’re not the kind of people you want to start a war with, you hear me?”

“Good,” I said, squatting down and glaring straight into our captive’s eyes. “Neither are we.” With that, I ripped the pistol from Frankie’s immobile fingers and buried the hardest strike I could deliver to a spot just behind and below his left ear. My dad had once called the bundle of nerves there ‘the button’. It worked exactly as I knew it would, and I saw the eyes that had moments before been full of malice roll listlessly back into my target’s head as he slumped unconsciously to the ground, face slamming into the ice-cold concrete.

“Nice,” Tai said, his best attempt at a grin spreading across his bruised face.

“Let’s get out of here before more of these cops show up. Raven, can you cut him out of there?”

Raven leapt up on the table, once again drawing the blade that glowed blue-hot. “This might sting a bit,” She warned.

“My whole body stings a bit. Little more won’t make a difference. Nice of you to care, though.”

“Shut up. I don’t care, I just… Whatever. Hold still.”

“Yeah, I kinda don’t have a choice, there.” Raven just growled in response to Tai’s wit. “Right. Fine, do your thing.” The steel of the shackles glowed a red-orange as the blade annihilated its way through the interrupter and lock, the same way she’d cut mine and Qrow’s cuffs. He winced, just as I had, but remained silent as I pulled first his left arm, then his right from the melted slag that had been his restraints. “Ow. I think my elbow is dislocated.”

“I can set it,” I said, taking hold of his forearm.

“No, no…” Tai protested. “I’ll, uh, I’ll let them take care of it at the infirmary.”

“What? I can get it, really!” I laughed.

“Nah, one appointment with grumpy Nurse Summer is my limit. I’ll let the professionals take care of it.”

“I’m not grumpy!”

“I bet Frankie and about half the goons in this room would disagree with you on that.”

“He ain’t lying,” one of the cops I’d waylaid earlier while invisible said from across the room.

“Hey, shuddup over there,” Qrow shot back. Turning to Tai, he grinned. “They roughed you up pretty good, huh?” Qrow asked.

“Yeah. Frankie ran his mouth quite a bit, too. I think the last thing they expected was you three to come charging in through a hole in thin air.”

“What kind of stuff he tell you?” I asked.

“Let’s lock these guys up first and throw away the key. Their buddies can come get them. Eventually.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Qrow, gimme a hand? Raven, watch the rest of ‘em.” Raven nodded, and Qrow and I set to work either tag-team escorting one thug at a time or carrying the ones that were still unconscious out the door and down to the cell block. Fortunately, the detainment area was close by. Suffice it to say that some of the crooked officers could definitely have done with a few less donuts. Frankie was the last. He regained consciousness just as we stooped to pick him up.

“ _Uhhhnnh._ Screw you, kid. You hit like a—"

“Girl? Thanks. Enjoy your nap?”

Raven leaned over, setting the end of the blade that still protruded from Frankie’s arm back into her empty sword-hilt and yanking it upward. Not even a drop of blood came from the wound. Even still, Frankie cursed loudly as the blade cracked free, though there was no way he could possibly have even felt it come loose; his arm was frozen all the way through. I could only imagine the damage that length of contact with Raven’s blade had done. As Qrow and I hoisted him up, Tai stood as well, facing down his old employer through his one barely-open eye. “Nice try, Frankie. But we win this round. Tell your bosses that their days running this city are numbered. And if you find whoever killed Jade before I do, I’ll beat down every enforcer you have to get to him, so you might as well just get out of my way.”

“There isn’t a thing a couple of damn teenagers are gonna do to take this city from us. Mark my words, you little street rat. This ain’t the last you and me are gonna see each other.”

“I’d bet on it. Let’s see how you do when I’m not locked to a table. Get him outta here, guys.”

“Come on,” I ordered, shoving Frankie through the door. He tripped, pulling away from me as his left hand went to the pocket of his jacket. I didn’t react in time, and saw him draw a derringer that had been concealed within. The twin-barreled micro-magnum raised towards Tai, who’s aura still hadn’t fully recovered yet. Instinct took over, I grabbed for the gun, trying to wrest it from his grip, and before I knew what had happened, it went off. My ears were ringing from the point-blank shot. I looked down at my abdomen, thinking he’d hit me, but there wasn’t any blood. My aura might’ve stopped the bullet, or… I whirled around. My teammates were all staring Frankie from inside the room. They all seemed fine… Turning back to our captive, I realized what they had been staring at. A blood stain spread from a hole in his chest, running down inside his nice silk shirt and reaching his waistline where it began to stain his trousers too.

Frankie was looking down at his chest too, before bringing his eyes up to mine. “Nice shot, girlie. First _real_ kill, huh? Little different when the monster you’re killing actually has a soul, ain’t it? Though mine’s… Going straight to hell I’m pretty sure.” He coughed, blood dripping from his mouth as he took a final, raggedy breath. “You’d… Make a great… Addition to the Family…” With that, he slid down against the wall, leaving a streak of blood from the exit wound on his back, before the light left his eyes and he went limp.

 


	15. Little Pieces of Metal

**Chapter 15: Little Pieces of Metal**

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. That had really just happened. A man was dead, and I’d killed him. He hadn’t been some mindless grimm. He’d been a person, with a voice, and a soul, no matter how twisted and evil it’d been. Now he was just a corpse. A corpse that didn’t just evaporate. It sat there, slumped against the wall, eyes open and face expressionless. I stared at the gun in my hand, my mind replaying over and over again my struggle with Frankie over this little piece of metal, and the moment my finger had tightened around the trigger, sending another little piece of metal through his heart. His face, his final words, all of it, rushing around in my head. Tai was by my side in a heartbeat. Qrow too, they both were pulling me away. The little piece of metal clattered to the floor.

“Summer. Summer! Come on! We have to go!”

“They’re coming, Summer. Come on!”

The urgency in my teammates’ voices was what caused my feet to finally start moving. I don’t know that I’d understood what they said, but some part of me knew I should just follow along. My feet only shuffled at first, then walked, then ran, back out through the cellblock, up the stairs to the high-walled sally port. There were about a dozen police hovercruisers parked within the gated back-entrance to the precinct, and Qrow wasted no time in leaping behind the wheel of the nearest one. “Get _in_!” He shouted at us as he leaned beneath the aircraft-like control yoke and ripped out the panel that covered the ignition lines. It was a similar-model Mako to Lennie’s, only marked with the traditional black and white two-tone paintjob of a normal police cruiser. The engine sparked to life, rumbling and whining as supercharged gravity-dust powered capacitors activated and the car lifted off a few feet from the ground.

“Let me drive,” Raven insisted from shotgun. “Your terrible at it.”

“Am not!”

“You are though!”

Suddenly the cell-block doors to the precinct burst open, and a mix of heavily-armed enforcers and Family-controlled cops fanned out and began firing. Bullets pinged off the car, punched through the doors, and shattered windows. Tai was trying to make himself as small a target as possible, ducking and balling himself as tightly as he could, but I was still too shaken to try to do the same. He grabbed the back of my head and shoved me down in the seat. “Come on, Summer! You did what you had to do! Snap out of it and get down!”

I shook my head, snapping back into focus as I was pressed down by my teammate’s protective action. Grabbing Tai’s wrist, I yanked his hand off of me and growled, “Don’t _touch_ me, Tai. Worry about yourself!” Tai just stared at me, clearly taken by surprise at my hostility. I didn’t blame him. Some part of me deep down was surprised too.

Up front, the Branwen twins were still shouting at each other. “We don’t have time to argue, Raven!” Qrow stomped the throttle and pushed the yoke forward… the wrong way. The front of the car dipped, scraping across the ground until it slammed into the wall. “Crap. This way!” He pulled back, and the car responded smartly, forcing a cop who’d taken up position behind us to abandon his attempt to shoot in through the back window to leap out of the way.

“Told you!” Raven half growled, half gloated to her brother.

“Shut up, Raven! I got this!” Banking hard left and pulling back once again, we were all thrown hard to the right as Qrow pitched the car up into tight upward spiral. Once we were above the wall of the sally port, he shakily evened the trim and stomped the accelerator. The car roared forward, zipping over the streets of nighttime Vale at incredible speed. I looked back as the walls we’d just been trapped within lit up suddenly with flashing blue strobes, the echoing sirens of the rest of the police cruisers overlapping as first one, then two, then all eleven other cars screamed into the air and banked after us. We must’ve looked like the bad guys to any of the undoubtedly-confused civilians down below. Though deep-down I knew it wasn’t true, in the moment I certainly felt like a criminal.

“They’re after us!” Tai shouted.

“Oh, really, _y’think_?” Qrow shot back. “I’ll lose ‘em. Hold on to something!” I saw him whip the yoke back to the left and pull back hard, sending us into a tight bank around the corner of the next block, before immediately turning down an alleyway to the rightand cutting through to the next street over. We burst from the alley above the traffic below, and I could see people shaking their fists at us as we blasted by. Qrow stayed low, about ten meters from the ground between the buildings, so low in fact that I probably could’ve reached out and touched the holographic street lamps. The other cruisers following us didn’t appear at first. Suddenly, however, I realized we’d just helped them close the gap by weaving through the alley. All eleven of our pursuers simply pulled up over the buildings we’d dodged between and dove back down to get on our tail, gaining on us. We could hear the radio chatter from the pursuing cars as the leader called out our turn.

_“Seven-oh-one to dispatch, we’re ten-thirty-one from the precinct. Pursuing units, suspects turned southbound at fourteenth and Market, units seven-oh-two, seven-oh-nine, head them off at nineteenth. Seven-oh-six, seven-twelve, cross up to Eleventh and do the same.”_

_“Ten-four.”_

_“Roger.”_

“You didn’t lose ‘em.” Tai said flatly. “And they’re gonna cut us off up there where Fourteenth dead ends at Broad.”

“I _KNOW,_ Tai. Gimme a _MINUTE_!”

I heard a sudden rhythmic _thump-thump-thump_ coming from behind and below us, recognizing the sound as the firing of vehicle-mounted anti-grimm chain guns only after a glowing slug the size of a tennis ball burned through the driver’s side C- and B-pillars of our ride and sailed off into the sky above downtown. Qrow skidded right and the rest of that burst of cannon fire from the lead cruiser ripped past us. “We don’t _have_ a minute!” Tai shouted. “Get even lower, they won’t fire if there’s a risk of hitting civilians.”

“Somehow I doubt that!”

“Just do it!” Tai urged. Qrow shook his head and dodged another salvo of shots before finally nosing down and skimming the rooftops of street-level traffic. The cannon fire stopped. “Told you. They can’t fire indiscriminately, because they know they’re no use to Jīn Xiong if they don’t keep the public trust!”

“Keep running, Qrow. I’ve got an idea,” Raven said calmly. “Pull up and bank right, over those buildings.”

“That’ll give ‘em an angle on us again! What are you gonna do?” Tai asked.

“Get us all out of this mess.”

“You guys need to make up your minds! Up? Down? Where do you want me to go?”

“Up!” Raven shouted.

“Stay down!” Tai responded, his and Raven’s voices overlapping.

“Screw it!” Qrow pulled up, and with that, as soon as the car banked, Raven opened her door and leapt.

“What the…?” Tai shouted.

“What the…?” Qrow grumbled, less surprised but still clearly annoyed.

 _“What the…?”_ The driver of the lead cop car echoed over the radio. _“We’ve got a jumper. Unit seven-oh-five, deal with that.”_

 _“Ten-four, we’re on her,”_ came the response from the car that had been diverted to chase Raven.

Another burst of cannon fire lit past our car to the right, blasting one of the rearview mirrors off before we again got low enough to avoid being shot at. Tai leaned through the broken plexiglass window that separated the backseat from the front and looked at Qrow. “What is she doing?”

“What makes you think I’d know?”

“Oh, I dunno, I think maybe because you’re her brother or something!”

“We’ve been over this Tai! Raven and I aren’t really on the same page most of the time, remember?”

“So, you didn’t tell her to show up at the precinct?”

“Not really, no. I knew she’d followed us to the construction site. Saw her watching from the next building over. I didn’t actually tell her to come find us, though, she kinda just did that on her own.”

Tai considered that for a split second. “Huh. Maybe she really does care then.”

“Don’t get your hopes up!” Qrow shouted as he pulled up to avoid a bus, grunting as he strained to whip the car left and right to avoid the tracers that zipped dangerously close to us the second we gave our pursuer another firing angle. Grabbing the handset that hung from the dash, Qrow keyed the mic and laughed. “You idiots are terrible shots, y’know that?”

 _“Screw you, kid, my grandma could drive that cruiser better,”_ came the crackly retort over the car’s speakers. _“This is seven-oh-one, ten-twenty Fourteenth southbound crossing Zoroaster Boulevard, requesting available units respond signal-six from fifth and sixth precincts, we’ve got four suspects fleeing precinct seven in a stolen cruiser, number seven-eleven. All available units from precinct seven are currently ten-thirty-one.”_

“Oh great. You pissed him off,” Tai shot sarcastically at our trash-talking driver.

“What’s signal six?” I asked.

“I think it’s an emergency code. Kent told me once. It means respond quick, suspects are dangerous.”

“We don’t even have any weapons!”

“I doubt he cares, Summer.”

_“This is unit five-oh-five. Five-oh-three and I are ten-seventy-six, responding signal-six as advised.”_

_“Five-oh-nine, ten-seventy-six, signal-six.”_

_“This is six-oh-two. Myself and units six-twelve, six-fourteen and six-oh-nine are ten-seventy-six, signal six from the sixth precinct as well.”_

“Holy crap, that’s a lot of backup,” Tai grumbled.

“That’s a lot of code talk,” I said in response. “You have any idea what they’re saying?”

“Kinda. I mean… A little. Okay, not really, no. Kent tried to teach me some ten-codes once. I forgot pretty much all of ‘em. Ten-seven means meal-break though, I do remember that.”

“Of course, _that’s_ the one you remember,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Raven better do whatever it is she had planned, and quick.”

_“This is five-oh-one. Myself and five-oh-two are responding as well. Dispatch, put our current call back in pending and switch us to Seventh’s ten-thirty-one.”_

_“Ten-four, Lieutenant,”_ a female voice I assumed was dispatch replied.

“Five-oh-one? That’s Kent!” Tai shouted. “Five-oh-two is Lennie!”

“Should we call on the radio to ‘em?” I asked, reaching for the mic.

“No,” Tai replied quickly as I tried to push past him and grab the handset.

“Why not?”

“Just trust me. It’s complicated. Stay off that radio. We don’t want Kent or Lennie to recognize our voices right now.” Our damaged cruiser zipped only inches above normal cars on the street below, with the line of shops and offices at the T-intersection in front of us looming ever larger every moment.

“ _Rrrg_ gghhh Raven, what are you _doing_?” Qrow growled as Fourteenth Street ended and he was forced to make a left turn onto Broad Avenue. The two units our lead pursuer had told to break off and intercept were waiting for us about three blocks away. What was worse, they had both lanes blocked. The street was free of civilians or cars. I saw the muzzle flashes as the barrels of their twin cannons barked to life. Qrow saw too, jerking the car upward and over the cone of tracer fire before banking hard back the other way. The road was clear eastbound… Until it wasn’t. The other two cruisers skidded in, one at street-level and the other about ten meters directly above it. One could fire down at us, the other could fire up if we tried to dodge with any more vertical maneuvers.

“We’re out of options!” Tai shouted.

“No we’re not!” Qrow shot back, “EAT SOME OF THIS!” Qrow shouted at the two cars in front of us, mashing a red button on his steering yoke. I imagine he thought that was the trigger for our own guns. It wasn’t. All three of us were shoved back in our seats as the car’s dust-powered engine screamed in response to the boost activation. Shots from both cruisers in front of us that would’ve torn us to pieces zipped harmlessly behind. The higher of the two cars dropped to our same altitude and moved to the right, as the lower of the pair ascended and moved left. Two more cruisers, presumably some of the backup that the seven-oh-one unit had called for, banked over the left-side rooftops and took up positions above them. The canyon run between the two unbroken stretches of buildings down Broad was all but blocked. We were either going to crash, or they were going to blow us out of the sky.

Or something entirely unexpected would happen. Just as I saw all four cruisers begin firing an impassible wall of twenty-five-millimeter rounds at our car, an enormous horizontal red line split the air right in front of us. It opened like an eye to become one of Raven’s portals, though larger by quite a margin than any I’d seen thus far. I realized that it still wasn’t quite big enough for the whole car to fit, though. “Get down, it’s gonna be tight!” Qrow shouted. Tai and I ducked just in time. The roof of the police car was carved off instantly by the edge of the portal like a hot knife slicing through butter as we passed through to wherever Raven had brought us.

It was pitch black, wherever we’d emerged. I couldn’t see anything, and the smell of the air that whipped through our newly- converted open-top cruiser us was atrocious. The left side of our car hit an unseen wall and we bounced off, turning sideways as Qrow overcorrected. As we skidded to a halt, the engine hissed, its overheated thrusters sinking into the muck of what I could only assume was the contents of the sewer. Acrid steam filled the air and caused all three of us to plug our noses. _“What… Where’d they go?”_ One unit called out on the radio.

_“No idea. They just vanished! Like somethin’ out of a movie!”_

_“Seven-oh-one to all units, spread out. They’ve got to be nearby. Betting it was one of those party-tricks those hotshot huntsmen can pull.”_

_“Five-oh-one to Seven-oh-one, ten-nine your last? You were chasing huntsmen?”_

_“Ten-four, Five-oh-one. You heard right.”_

_“Might’ve mentioned that earlier. The hell for?”_ I could hear the suspicion and confusion in Kent’s voice.

 _“Same reason we chase anyone, old man. They broke the law. I want every unit to sweep the surrounding area. Leave nothing unturned. Seven-oh-five, you find that jumper?”_ No response came from the unit that’d gone after Raven. _“Seven-oh-five? Wake up, boys! Simmons, Tucker, can you hear me?”_ Nothing. Had Raven killed them? The thought caused me to panic. One death was too many already. Had she taken my action as leave to do the same?

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” Raven’s voice said from the darkness of the sewer behind us, as if she could hear my thoughts. “They’re napping.” The sound of one of Raven’s sword blades being withdrawn from her sheath, accompanied by an eerie yellow glow that reflected off the moist, moldy walls caused us all to look back at our teammate, who held her sword up like a torch. “Nice landing, brother.”

“You could’ve done that a little sooner!” Qrow shot back in response to his sister’s sarcasm.

“You’re welcome, by the way. Again. Now, we need to get out of here. It won’t be long before they find the car those two idiots were driving and realize I ducked into the sewer to throw them.”

Tai, Qrow and I leapt up onto the narrow maintenance catwalk that was bolted to the inner wall of the curved tunnel. “I think I liked the sewers back in Ancient Vale more,” Tai grumbled.

“There probably aren’t any of those spiders here though,” Qrow replied.

“Good point. But at least those didn’t smell like… This. Not sure what’s worse.” Tai answered, pulling his shirt up over his nose and mouth. We walked quickly away from the sizzling wreck of the police car, on down the sewer with Raven leading the way. “At least their K-9’s wouldn’t be able to track us through here. Even if they did figure out where you went, Raven.”

“Glad you appreciate my genius.” Raven replied unenthusiastically, walking on without another word. The sewer wound on seemingly forever. Finally, however, we came across an access to a maintenance shaft. It was locked, but Raven sliced the bolts the secured the locking mechanism to the inner wall, and the heavy steel hatch pulled open easily after that. Four rays of light shone through holes in the manhole cover above, piercing down into the gloom as Raven sheathed her blade and began to climb the rungs bolted into the concrete wall of the shaft. “It looks pretty clear,” Raven mumbled down after raising the cover up about an inch or two. We followed her up, all of us breathing deeply for the first time since we’d found ourselves below ground. I was the last to get above ground, and Tai slid the manhole cover back into place after helping me up. I saw the look he gave me, and knew almost instinctively what he was about to say.

“Listen… Summer. About Frankie…”

“I’ll be alright. At least it wasn’t any of you who died.”

“Or you,” he added. “You seem to forget that part sometimes.”

“How’s the arm?” I asked, changing the subject.

Tai sighed, before looking at his left forearm as it hung limply at his side. “Hurts. But my aura is keeping my whole body pretty numb. That and I think I was going on adrenaline there for a minute. Almost forgot I’d gotten the crap kicked outta me while we were running.”

“Can you see alright?” I’d noticed both of Tai’s eyes were now open, despite the massive shiner on one and the noticeable swelling around the other.

“Yeah,” he replied, looking around. “Yeah, they’re fine. No eye patch for me yet.”

“Operative word being ‘yet’,” I said, smiling a little. “We never found our weapons.”

“No, they’re probably back at the precinct they had us at.”

I thought about Scourge and Thorn, and Curse, and Tai’s unnamed tonfas. We’d probably never get them back. And I’d probably never get my hands on any more of that braid that I’d made Scourge’s plasma whip out of. And sparring class was tomorrow. I was going to have to come up with something. Barring Raven, all of us were, in case we got picked for a bout with a classmate in the morning. I shook my head. What a stupid thing to be worrying about right now, I thought.

The police lights reflecting off of buildings around the corner snapped my attention back to the present. They were probably still looking for us. We ducked back into an alley, hiding behind dumpsters, a few boxes, whatever we could while the cruiser the lights belonged to passed by. The cops slowed as they passed, shining a powerful spotlight down and disturbing a stray cat down at the far end of the alley, which I heard hiss and yowl its displeasure. The cops moved on, and the four of us waited for the flashing lights to fade. “We need to get back to campus. Raven, still got your scroll?”

“Yeah.”

“Lemme get it. I’ve gotta make a call.” Tai took Raven’s scroll, thinking for a second as if he were trying to remember someone’s number before dialing and putting the phone on speaker.

“Who is this?” Kent’s voice.

“Hey Kent. It’s Tai. Borrowing a friend’s scroll. You got a minute?”

“Not really. Helping run the search for some fugitives from Precinct Seven. They beat up a bunch of officers, killed a special agent, and stole a hovercruiser to escape.” The four of us looked at each other. None of us said anything, but I could practically hear everyone’s thoughts. The ‘Special Agent’ Kent was talking about was Frankie.

“Wow. Pretty serious bunch if they did all that.”

“It gets weirder, bud. Apparently, they just vanished, right when the precinct six and seven boys had ‘em cornered. Just left the roof of the car they stole just sittin’ in the middle of the road. The P-7 L-T, my opposite number up here, thinks it was huntsmen. You know anyone from that school that can… Uh… How’d he describe it… Create portals outta thin air?”

“No, no one,” Tai lied. “Well, it’s kinda important, actually. It’s about Jade. Think you can send Lennie?”

Kent sighed. “Look, he’s helping run the crime-scene down at the precinct. Processing evidence and taking statements from the boys that the suspects jacked up. Where are you? We ain’t gonna find these guys. I’ll tell ‘em I’m ten-seven.”

“We’re uh… I think we’re on Twenty-seventh. Looks like there’s a bookstore across the street. Address is 282. Know where that is?”

“Uhhhh… Yeah. Yeah, I know where you’re at. Actually, you’re pretty close to the perimeter of our search. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem, kid.” Kent hung up, and Tai handed the device back to Raven.

“Hope he believes you,” Raven said pessimistically.

“He will. He’s got to.” Kent hadn’t been kidding. It barely took him a minute or two to swoop down. His mako had the words ‘Precinct Five: Command Unit’ emblazoned on the side. The tinted window lowered, and Kent ducked down to look at us.

“There’s more of you then there was last night. Miss Rose, nice to see you again. Mr. Qrow,” he added with a nod to Qrow. “And who might you be?” Kent asked Raven.

“My name’s Raven. That one’s my brother,” she added, nodding at Qrow.

“Ah. I see the family resemblance. Gang’s all here then? Get in, guys. It’ll be a bit cramped, but we’ll manage.”

I helped Tai open the front passenger-side door. “Thanks,” he grinned. “Shotgun, by the way.”

I laughed softly before sliding into the backseat beside Qrow and Raven. It would’ve been bad if we’d had Tater back here instead of Qrow, but fortunately all three of us there lean enough to fit fairly easily.

“Holy crap… What happened to you, Tai? Couldn’t really see it when you were outside the car. You look like you lost a fight with a train.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“I can’t— _ooof._ ” Kent held his hand to his nose while lowering all the windows. “Smells like you all climbed outta the sewer too! What’ve you been up to?”

Tai looked back at the three of us, sighed, then looked back at Kent. “We thought we had a lead on who killed Jade. Went to go find one of the guys I used to help run contraband with. Knew he’d be at that old noodle restaurant on Eighth. Once we found him, he told us what happened to her.” Tai paused.

“Well? Spill it. What’s the story?” Kent said, looking expectantly at his ward.

“It was a rip. Contraband she was delivering was about seventy-thousand lien worth of uncut dust. Her buyer stabbed her and took the stuff.”

“No way…” Kent said, as he pulled up and over Vale’s nighttime skyline. “Then what?”

“Well, we had a run-in with a few Xiong Family enforcers. Seems they remembered my face. The second they saw me show up here in downtown, my old boss caught wind of it and sent a hit squad. We were able to take care of them, but…”

Before Tai could finish, the radio in Kent’s car crackled to life. _“Five-oh-two to all units, be advised: Person description obtained from officers present during the breakout at Seventh Precinct HQ. Four suspects, two females, two males. Suspect one, white female mid-teens, silver or grey eyes, medium length black hair with red highlights, white cloak, black skirt, combat boots. Body armor on upper torso and right arm. Suspect two, white female, mid-teens, red or crimson eyes, waist-length black hair. Known to be armed with a sword, eastern design. Described as a ‘really long ninja sword’. Possible interchangeable blades on the weapon, suspect considered highly dangerous. Clothing description: Red waist-length kimono and black miniskirt, black thigh-boots. Suspect three…”_

Kent had stopped listening, his eyes darting between me and Raven in the rearview mirror.

_“…White male, mid-teens, blonde hair, blue eyes…”_

            “What… Have you guys been up to?” Kent asked, his voice deadly serious and his hand slowly reaching for his pistol.

            _“…Suspect four, white male, lanky or skinny build, black hair, red or crimson eyes…”_

“Kent… You’ve gotta listen to me. It’s not what the other lieutenant told you. At all.”

“Oh, yeah?” Suspicion dripped from Kent’s voice. “Then you’re gonna need to start explaining why my number two is describing you four over the radio in connection with a murder, larceny of Kingdom property and flight from justice. _Right. Now._ ”

“That ‘Special Agent’ you told me was killed back in the precinct. That was my old boss, Frankie. He was a mid-level thug in the Xiong clan.”

“Hang on. Frank Valenti? Special Agent Frank Valenti? You’re saying he’s the same guy you used to work for back on the streets?”

“Exactly!”

“I need some proof, kid. I’d met him a few times before, seemed like a straight-up guy to me. Bit of a loud fashion sense, but he wasn’t no Family goon.”

“I don’t have any, besides what I’m telling you, Kent. I dunno what happened between when you arrested me all those years ago and now, but he got promoted. When did this… Special Agent or whatever come work for VPD? Was he a transfer in or…?

Kent’s eyes narrowed as he thought about it. “Yeah, yeah, he was actually. Transfer from some town up in northern Sanas. Hotshot investigator or whatever. I never worked with him much, but he did have a rep for being sharp as a tack. Could smell a perpetrator’s fingerprint from a mile away, that kind of thing.”

“When did he show up? Lemme guess, about three years ago?”

“How did you… Yeah. Exactly.”

“Then the timeline works out. He told me he got promoted in the Family three years ago. He’s been working inside Vale PD under orders since then. Told me his boss didn’t care what methods he used. Blackmail, bribery, kidnapping, murder, whatever. He told me half of Vale PD was on a leash thanks to his ‘Hard work and dedication’.”

“Half? That’s… That’s impossible, Tai.”

Tai pointed at his face, and his injuries. “He was doing this to me in that interrogation room, gloating about how the Xiong’s would own this city in another three years. That’s my blood they’ll find in there on that table. He gave me a choice, join back up or die. He had no reason to lie… He thought he’d won. Fortunately,” Tai paused, looking back at the three of us in the backseat, “those three showed up out of nowhere and beat him down, his goons too. Those are the guys we locked up at the precinct.”

“So you’re saying all of Precinct Seven…”

“And others. It goes way beyond seven, Kent.”

“What happened to Frankie? Who killed him?”

“I did,” I said. Tai looked back at me, surprised I’d spoken up about that.

“That so?” Kent replied thoughtfully. “Clean kill. Saw the body myself. Most of the prints on the gun by his feet belonged to him, but there was another set on top of those that weren’t in the system.”

“Yes sir. I… I took it from him.”

“He was shot point-blank. Our forensics guys noticed the powder residue on his shirt real quick. Struggle?”

“Yes. He pulled it after we thought the fight was over. Tried one more time to kill Tai. I… We fought over it, and it got turned around somehow and I pulled the trigger.”

Kent was silent for a moment. Finally, he spoke. “Well, it seems you did it in defense of a third party. That’s a good shoot.”

“A _good shoot_?” I asked incredulously. “A _good_ … How can you say that?”

“That’s just a cop-term, miss Rose. ‘Good’ as in ‘Justifiable’. Sometimes ‘Justifiable’ is the only measure of ‘Good’ that can come from policework. I imagine it’s the same for Huntsmen and Huntresses.”

“That can’t be right. It shouldn’t be. He was a human being, not a monster.”

“He _was_ a monster, Summer,” Tai said. “You can’t let this get to you. You did what you had to do.”

“I’m no counselor or psychologist or whatever, Summer,” the Lieutenant said. “But I know cops who’ve had to do the same exact thing you did. It hurt them. Cost ‘em all a piece of their humanity to pull that trigger. None of them will ever be the same, but it’s part of the game when you dedicate yourself to helping others. I’m sure your dad would agree, humans can be just as dangerous as those crazy creatures you kids fight out there.”

“I… I guess.”

“Either you’ll come to terms with it or you won’t,” Raven said. I was surprised to hear her chime in, and turned to look across the backseat at her. “If you do, it’ll make you stronger. If you don’t, well, you weren’t cut out for this life anyway.”

“Raven…” Qrow admonished for her seemingly harsh words.

“I think I know what she meant, Qrow,” I said, stopping him from launching into a retort on my behalf. “She could use some work on her delivery, but I think that’s probably one of the most positive things she’s said since we’ve met.”

“Shut up,” Raven growled.

“Whatever,” I said, managing a smile.

“Alright. Somehow, I knew you kids would get way in over your heads when I turned you loose last night. I believe you though. Something smelled funny about this from the very beginning. Heck, something smells funny now, but I think it’s just you all. What happened to the cruiser you stole?”

“It’s in the sewer.”

“How the—Never mind. I don’t wanna know. So whaddyou want me to do?”

Tai looked at us before shrugging. “Just… Stay alert, Dad. Figure out who you can trust. We didn’t call out to you on the radio when you and Lennie jumped in on the chase because I knew it would paint a target on your backs. I hope it won’t come down to blue versus blue… A lot of good people would die if it came to a civil war like that. I’m going to try and take down the Family without that kind of thing happening.”

“Take down the Xiong’s? All of ‘em?”

“Yeah. The goal was to find Jade’s killer, but this… This has gotten way bigger than my little revenge quest now.”

“That’s a hell of an extracurricular there, little man.”

“It’ll be worth it to try. Still, I could use some help.”

“You’ve got all three of us,” I said. Raven huffed, but after Qrow and I shot her a look she rolled her eyes and nodded. “I bet Team GLDN would help too.”

“We can’t go getting the whole school involved. Huntsmen can’t act inside the city without council approval, remember?”

“Well, we’re not huntsmen yet. And with just the eight of us, we could stay low-profile enough to make it work.”

“I hope you’re all up for it. I’ll run interference for you all, whenever and wherever I can.”

“You don’t have to,” Tai said, but Kent held up his hand.

“’Course I do. I’ll find guys we can trust. Lennie and his S.W.A.T. buddies make a heck of a pocket army.”

Tai smiled. “Thanks. We could use a ride back to school, too.”

“Lemme turn my location tracker off. Probably would look pretty fishy if I went that far out of the way on my ‘meal break’.” Kent extended the scroll-tablet mounted to an armature that held it within reach. A few one-handed keystrokes and he grinned. “There. We are now the invisible police cruiser.”

“Nice,” Tai grinned back as we zoomed off over the rooftops, careful to stay away from the perimeter of roving officers around Precinct Seven to avoid notice. Within minutes, we were swinging in over the landing pads at the school. I checked my scroll. It was a quarter till nine.

“We’ve gotta come up with something to use as weapons. Our professors are bound to notice if we show up without the tools of the trade, right?”

“Oh, fun. I get to see you geek out in person,” Qrow said.

“I’ve gotta get to the infirmary, hopefully the night nurses can reset this arm without making too big a deal about it. I’ll say I fell down the stairs or something,” Tai said.

“Making something like your Tonfas shouldn’t be too hard,” I said. “I got you, you go take care of yourself.

“You all have fun with that,” Raven said dryly. “I’m going to go get a shower and go to bed. Don’t make too much noise whenever you get back to the room.”

“We’ll be sure to wake you up, sis,” Qrow said with a laugh. The four of us debarked the police cruiser. As we turned to leave, we heard Kent call out from inside the car.

“Tai?”

“Yeah?” Tai turned and took a few short steps back to stand beside the cruiser. “What’s up, Kent?”

“Thanks for the warning. About the tarnished badges in the PD. I had no idea. Just… Keep up the fight, alright?”

“No problem. I will. Stay safe out there, Dad.”

“You two kid… Son.” With that, Kent rolled the window up and took off.

Tai stood motionless for a moment. I walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “That was the first time he’s called me that, y’know?” Tai said, a faraway look in his eyes.

“Let’s not disappoint him. He’s counting on us. C’mon. I’ll walk you to the infirmary, then go throw something together for us to use in sparring tomorrow.”

“I can make it alone, you and Qrow go on to the armory. I’ll probably drop by if they just reset this arm and let me go. Gotta customize my order, y’know?”

“Oh, I see how it is. It’s gonna cost you double, though. Alright blondie, get out of here. See you in a bit. And Tai?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

“You too, Summer,” Tai said with a smile, before turning away down towards the western thoroughfare that led to the infirmary.

“You two are adorable,” Qrow joked as I fell into step beside him.

“Oh, shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Probably don’t, you’re right.” I couldn’t tell if that had been sarcasm or not, so I just let it go. We walked on in silence almost until we reached the armory. A few dozen meters from the building, however, Qrow finally spoke again. “You were really shaken up when you thought they were gonna kill him, huh?”

“Of course, I was. He’s my teammate. My responsibility.”

“It’s nice to be around people who think like that,” Qrow replied, a reflective note to his voice.

“How do you mean? Was your tribe… Did they not look out for each other like that?”

“No. No one did, unless it benefitted them too in some way.”

“Sounds rough,” I said, not sure of where to go with that.

Qrow looked down at me, and I could tell he was having trouble getting something off his chest. I looked back at him expectantly, and finally he spoke. “Raven would say that’s what kept us all alive. She’d never admit it, but that’s a lie she tells herself because she doesn’t trust people, and because it makes it easier for her to be the only person she has to answer to.”

“Qrow, I don’t think Raven has to answer to me—”

“But I think what you did today,” Qrow continued, holding up his hand as if to apologize for cutting me off, “What you did today showed her that you can make the right calls when you need to. All that stuff about how naïve she thought you were or whatever, it’s because she’s seen too much of the real world to believe in people with principles anymore. But you showed her that someone can have principles and still be able to do what’s necessary when the time comes.”

“What, so, because I killed someone I’m okay now? She’ll respect me or whatever?”

“No, no that’s… It’s more complicated than that. I’m only saying that you won’t have to worry about her as a teammate. Just don’t back down when she calls you on your decisions, and she’ll let you make the calls you need to, because she knows you can make the right ones now.”

“So, pulling the trigger on that guy. You think it was the right thing to do?”

“Definitely. You saved Tai’s life twice inside of two minutes. Frankie was hell-bent on killin’ him. And let’s face it, he probably deserved it.”

“See, that’s the problem, Qrow,” I said as I opened the door to the armory and started down the stairs. “Maybe it’s those principles of mine again. But I don’t think anyone deserves to die. I’ve never seen my dad kill, and he’s everything I could ever want to be when I get older. If he can manage to avoid it, I should too.”

Qrow studied me for a moment, as if wondering exactly how committed to that I’d remain. “Maybe you should ask him about it, next time you see him.”

“I will,” I replied. The armory was empty like normal. “Okay. Gonna start with Tai’s tonfas first, they’ll be easy. Go find me some steel pipe and some round stock that just barely fits inside that. If it’s too big, it’s fine, we can turn it down on the lathe over there. All the raw stock is back in the far corner.” Qrow walked off in the direction I’d pointed him, and I went over to the parts bins to grab springs, rivets, and whatever else I thought I’d need. After collecting a basketful of random bits and scraps from other people’s old projects, I went back to the workbench and dumped all the little pieces of metal over a sheet of draft paper and set to work sketching out my teammate’s new gear.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Cram-Session**

“You built these in three hours?”

“I mean, yeah… They’re not _that_ complicated,” I replied, sheepishly adjusting the neckerchief I’d tied my hair back with while trying to downplay Tai’s surprise at his completed replacement weapons.

“I mean, no, but still...” My teammate had arrived in the armory from the infirmary moments before, holding an ice pack against his still-swollen right eye, but tossed it away the second he’d laid eyes on what I’d put together. He hit the two weapons together, as if testing their durability, before grinning at the heavy metallic _thunk_ that reverberated briefly through the thick steel construction of each.

I sighed, then shrugged my acknowledgement. I really didn’t think the new tonfas really weren’t as impressive as Tai was hyping them up to be. They’d get the job done, at least until I could upgrade them or better still, we found his old ones. “Give ‘em a whirl, I guess.”

“Alright,” Tai responded, taking a step or two back to some relatively clear floorspace near the armory’s atrium and exit stairwell. “Heavier than my other ones, that’s for sure,” he added before giving each of the twin batons an under-armed spin. Seemingly satisfied with the way they felt in hand, Tai assumed a fighter’s stance and pivoted, striking at empty air in front of him before leaping backward. A change of direction and subsequent burst of speed gave him enough momentum to kick off the nearby wall and perform a familiar-looking spinning double-strike. I recognized it as being fundamentally the same move he’d used to obliterate the skull of the alpha creep that had been about to kill me during initiation. Skidding to a stop by the workbench again, an ear-to-ear grin spread across his face. The smile faded for a brief moment and Tai swayed on his feet, but he simply steadied himself and looked back to me. “ _Woahh_. Whole room started spinning for a sec there.”

“You good to be jumpin’ around like that after getting the snot beat outta ya a few hours ago man?” Qrow asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, dude,” Tai said with a dismissive wave, before swaying again and having to brace against the wall by my bench. “So, at least I got somethin’ to crack some skulls with, now.” He started to place the weapons against the mag-plates on his trousers, but I held up my hand. “What?” He asked, confusedly. I simply held up two fingers and beckoned for him to give me one of the tonfas. “Ohh… Kayyy…” Tai tentatively obliged.

Taking hold of the grip, I noticed the look Qrow shot our teammate, before the two of them looked back at me with rapt interest. He’d seen me build these, and was well aware of the extra features I’d managed to install. I guess he was as excited to see Tai’s reaction as I was. “Can’t let you go back out there with just a couple metal sticks, right?” With that, I flicked a small thumb-toggle built into the cap of his handle to its upward most position, then clicked a recessed trigger that I’d fit snugly beneath where I knew my teammates’ index finger would rest when holding the grip. As I held the trigger, arcing blue energy jolted up and down the length of the striking end of his weapon.

“No way…” Tai said, his surprise evident as he did the same with the tonfa he’d held on to. “How?”

“I cannibalized the dust reservoir and contacts from the stun batons Qrow and I picked up at the precinct. Dust is free here, so I dialed up the output calibration and reinforced the capacitors, kinda the same thing I did when I had that overvoltage issue with Scourge but in reverse, and then I…”

“Summer… English,” Qrow reminded me before I could really dive into details.

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes at the technological neanderthals I had for teammates. “Sorry. I took standard police stun batons, ripped out their shocky-bits, stuck ‘em to your new tonfas, and cranked their output up to eleven. Dumbed down enough for you?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect, Summer. See, you _can_ make sense when you talk weapons.”

“Quiet, you,” I grumbled back at Qrow. “Anyway, that’s not all I added.”

“There’s _more_?” At this point, Tai was incredulous. “I take it back. These aren’t simple.”

“Nah, they uh, they still kinda are,” I replied. “It barely took an hour to build the things and bolt in the electronics. So I had an idea. Flip that thumb-switch down instead of up and pull the trigger again. Oh, and uh… careful. Don’t point it directly at your face or anything.”

Tai did as he was instructed. The instant his finger depressed the trigger again, a dagger-thin, razor-sharp straight blade pivoted ninety degrees from its concealed position within the body of the weapon. The magnetic pivot built into the flared distal end of the striking end, a miniaturized version of the setup I’d used on Thorn’s blade actuation, clanked into place with a satisfying _sschlock-_ noise. Tai gasped his surprise, his slack-jawed reaction enough proof to me that he liked the change I’d made to his weapon’s bladed options. “Summer, this… Ooohhh this is cool.”

“I know,” I said, my self-satisfaction clear in my voice. “Let off the trigger, it’ll break the circuit that powers the electromagnets in the pivot and the blades will retract automatically.” I showed him what I meant, the blade on the tonfa I’d had him give me flashing in and out with every squeeze and release of the trigger. “So. You like ‘em?”

“I do! These are great! It’s just…” Tai began scratching the back of his head with one tonfa as he accepted the other back from me.

“What?” I asked, a little defensive over the prospect of having to re-do something about the tonfas.

“One teeny, itsy-bitsy, tiny request.”

I rolled my eyes. “Spit it out.”

“Shotguns.”

“I knew it. Look, I didn’t have any that I could rip apart and add in there. I’ll think about it. Tomorrow. But I still gotta make him something to replace Curse,” I said, nodding at Qrow, “And then come up with a replacement for at least Scourge, and maybe Thorn if I can, in case Hargrave wants me to spar with someone tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” Tai agreed. “One thing I guess I can do…” He took his other tonfa back and walked off, as if looking for something. I watched him for a moment, but then turned to Qrow. “Alright. Curse. By the way, how the heck did you build that out in the middle of nowhere with your tribe?”

“Oh, uh… Bits and pieces. Y’know.”

“No, actually, I don’t know. But I’ll figure something out. You hardly ever use its transformation into a scythe, right?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda a surprise option I use when things get hairy. The shotguns and the blade itself are really all I use.”

“What is it with you two and shotguns?” I asked exasperatedly.

“Dunno. What is it with you and being a dork?”

I shoved Qrow playfully for that last remark before looking around the shop. “Hmm. Alright. Well, like I told Tai, we don’t have any shotguns. You’ll have to do without those until we can find Curse.”

“You think we will? Scourge was kinda unique too. And Thorn. You’ll have a hell of a time rebuilding them.”

“I know,” I sighed. “But you just let me worry about that. You still have that pistol you snagged back at the precinct?”

Qrow nodded and handed over the unremarkable .45 caliber police firearm. “Yeah. Here.”

“Alright. The trigger would be simple enough to stretch back. I dunno…”

“What can I do?”

“Hang on. I’m thinking out loud,” I said, holding up my hand. After another moment, I jumped back over to my workbench and swept the mess of metal bits and excess material from Tai’s tonfas onto the floor. “Where’d I leave that stupid… Aha. There you are.” Grabbing the thick carpenter’s pencil I’d been using, I set to work sketching out the rough outline of Qrow’s weapon the huge sheet of drafting paper. Laying the pistol at the central mechanical section that housed all of the gears and pivots Curse had utilized, I studied the image… Then it came to me. “A glaive.”

“A what?”

“It’s like a sword on a really long haft. My dad uses one with a blade at each end. I’m thinkin’ build yours with a single blade, but have your same telescoping handle so you can use it like a sword most of the time. Think I’ll throw the pistol in there for good measure. Close as I can get to what Curse was in a night.”

Qrow seemed to consider what I’d said. “I guess, yeah. So… No shotguns?”

“Oh my gosh… No! No shotguns.” A look at Qrow’s expression made it clear enough he was messing with me, so I rather than hit him with the wrench I had close at hand, I cuffed the side of his head and pointed back at the raw stock supply in the back of the room again. “The rack will be marked. I need a three-quarter inch steel plate, biggest one you can find that’ll fit on that plasma cutting rig over there. Look for T-ten or L-six steel, that’s the good stuff.”

“Alright, alright,” Qrow said, shooting me a grin. _Smartass_ , I thought.

“I need more of that pipe and round stock too!” I called to him as an afterthought. “For your grip! Whatever width feels good in your hand!”

“Yes ma’am!” he shouted back with a wave of acknowledgement, just as Tai returned with his tonfas and an aerosol cannister. I realized after watching for a moment that it was some kind of impact-resistant spray paint.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked.

“Just adding a little something to make ‘em pop, you know? Little trademark Xiao Long flair.”

“What ‘ _flair’_?” I asked mockingly. “When were leather vests and those weird knee-zipper cargo pants ever in style?”

“Don’t hate.” Tai shot back as he finished masking off the blackened steel of his weapon’s grip with a roll of tape and lay his new tonfas on the floor, uncapping the spray paint as he did.

“I’m not, I’m not, it’s just…” I said sarcastically, stopping as I heard the _hissssssss… Hisss… Hissssssssssssssssssss_ of the spray can and noticed the color for the first time. “Oh. Of course. The loudest shade of yellow you could find.”

“Gold, thanks.”

“It’s yellow, Tai.”

“You’re impossible. You rather I go all black and white like you? _Bor-ring._ ”

“It’s black, white, and red, thanks.”

“You know what else is black, white, and _read_ all over?”

“What?”

“Newspaper. Maybe that’ll be your new nickname.”

I rolled my eyes at the bad joke. “Ugghh. It could be, if you want to die young.”

Tai laughed. “You wouldn’t. You just went through all kinds of trouble trying to _stop_ me from dying young.”

He had a point. “Whatever, blondie,” was the best comeback I could respond with, and I left him to continue his little spray-paint adventure. Once Qrow returned with the raw materials for his new Curse, I tried showing him how to operate the industrial plasma-cutting table. Needless to say, it was useless. After he almost burned his hand off when the machine kicked on, I took over, and for the next four hours we worked to assemble his new Curse.

**~  ~  ~  ~  ~**

“This wound up being an all-nighter,” I recalled to Pyrrha as we watched Qrow and me argue about something or other regarding his weapon. I closed my eyes and zipped through the memory, refocusing just in time for Pyrrha and I to watch the three of us drag ourselves exhaustedly up the stairs. Tai pushed open the doors, and all of us groaned and squinted against the early morning sunrise.

“I need coffee. A lot of it. Stat,” we heard me groan.

“I’d rather get… Some sleep,” Tai replied yawning halfway through his sentence.

Pyrrha smiled a little. “I suppose that’s one kind of all-night cram session. It’s amazing that you all even had enough energy to work all night, after what happened to you all yesterday.”

“Well, I was the only one who actually stayed up. Tai and Qrow both passed out a couple of times, and that was fine by me. They actually kinda got in the way more than they helped. Needless to say, though, we weren’t planning on going after Trigger for a few days. We each had...” I paused, reliving the shock of my first human kill yet again. Frankie had really only been the first of quite a few people that’d die at the end of my weapons. “We each had our own wounds to heal,” I finished, looking back up after Pyrrha’s expectant gaze caught my downcast eye.

After neither of us said anything for a moment, Pyrrha spoke. “It comes so easily for some people.”

“What does?”

“Killing. Death follows them like… Like a sickness. People like Frankie. Like the faunus in the White Fang. Like Mercury, and... And like Cinder.” Pyrrha visibly tensed at her own mention of her murderer.

“I suppose it does.” Did it come easily for me? I thought back. Jīn Xiong, King Reeah… Those two were easy. But there were others… Many others. To this day I wished things hadn’t had to go the way they did. I still remembered every face, and it all started with the one Pyrrha and I had just witnessed.

“Do you know what I think, Summer?”

“What?”

“I think you can’t tell the difference between them and yourself, somedays. I think you’re wrong, too, to ever think that.”

Once again it was like she’d read my mind. “How so?”

“Those people don’t cast a second thought to the lives they waste. You do. It hurt you to kill Frankie, and I believe it still does to a degree. You’ll remember every life you took… And, so will I.”

“But you never killed anyone,” I said, surprised that she’d make that comparison.

“I did, though. The same night I died. I killed one of Ruby’s best friends. Penny Polendina.”

I suddenly remembered who my companion was talking about. “Pyrrha…” A tear fell from her eye and I could feel her recollection of the incident, feel the fear she felt as that Emerald girl had been messing with her mind. It was pressing at the edges of my control over the Veil. We weren’t going to revisit that scene. No way. I dug in tight to my memory of the morning after our close escape from the Xiong clan and looked Pyrrha straight in the eyes. There was something she needed to know. “Pyrrha, you’re wrong. You didn’t kill Penny.”

“If you mean I didn’t kill her because she was some kind of android and that doesn’t count, I’m afraid I’d have to disagree,” Pyrrha replied, turning her face wistfully, even ashamedly away from mine. “Penny was as real a person as I’d ever met. Innocent, fearless, pure. Just like Ruby, really. It’s a small wonder they gravitated towards one another.”

“No, Pyrrha, that’s not what I meant. I meant Penny died long before you destroyed that version of her. And her aura, her soul… It never ended up crossing the Veil. I never saw it transfer from the other side, like yours did.”

The revelation caused Pyrrha’s eyes to snap straight back to mine. “What? What are you saying?”

“Penny Polendina… The real one, was about seven years younger than me. I met her once, on a mission to Atlas after I graduated. Thomas Polendina was one of the most brilliant scientists working for the Atlesian Special Operative’s Corps at the time, along with a man named Arthur Watts. Together, they headed up the deep-science division of the ASOC.”

“What?” Pyrrha was clearly in shock. “You knew her? How… How could that be?”

“Penny was a sweet little girl. Light of her father’s life. When… When Watts was given clearance to start a highly-classified project at the request of then Brigadier-General Ironwood, his research gave him… I suppose you could call it a ‘god complex’. I never heard all the details, but I knew it had something to do with discovering and harnessing the essence of aura… And the soul.”

“You… You can’t be serious. The machine they had in the vault at Beacon, the one they were going to use to transfer the former Fall Maiden’s aura and bind it to mine… That was Atlesian technology. General Ironwood said that they’d been able to discover how to capture and transfer aura artificially. You’re saying this… Watts, this Arthur Watts was the developer of that?”

“He may have been. I never saw the machine you’re talking about. What I do know, however, is that his first human test subject for his disgusting experiments was in fact little Penny. She often stayed with her father down in the labs. She was incredibly smart for a kid her age, and she loved helping her father with his work on high-tech prosthetics. Sometime after I completed that mission, I heard Watts had tricked her into getting into his machine, and successfully transferred her soul to a holding matrix. I guess you could call it a central processor, a quantum field device of his own design, capable of housing the entirety of a human’s soul.”

“That’s… I can’t believe someone could be capable of doing something that… That evil!”

“I found it hard to believe too. When Thomas found out, he tried to kill Watts. I certainly can’t say I blame him. But Watts shot Thomas first. The bullet paralyzed Thomas, and the bastard escaped. He took all of his notes on the procedure too, using his connections to disappear. The incident was never disclosed to the public, but Oz told me everything James told him. An attempt to reverse the transfer of Penny’s soul and put her back into her human body failed, and they had to abort. The partial failed transfer caused her to lose her memory… Who she had been, who Thomas was… She was a blank slate, trapped in that matrix. The only real measure of life her broken father could give her was to start developing the P.E.N.N.Y. program. He used his most advanced research on combat-capable prosthetics, upgraded Atlesian robotics, adaptive artificial learning… Everything. The result is the Penny you knew at Beacon.”

“So, you’re saying… I didn’t actually kill her?”

“No. Judging by what I saw of her before the battle in Amity Coliseum began to rage, the control cable of hers, the one that ripped her in half, would’ve missed her core. Her soul stayed in place, and was probably hooked up to a backup power supply. I’d wager anything that Ironwood got his hands on what was left and sent it all straight back to Thomas. Penny will be fine.” I hoped I was right about that. Whether I was or not, Pyrrha seemed to consider it for a moment before another tear fell from her eye. She wiped her face and sniffed, and I felt her mind ease.

“That’s… That’s probably the best news I could’ve hoped to get. Thank you, Summer.”

“Of course.” We’d been walking alongside the utterly exhausted team STRQ all the way from the armory to the dorms during that conversation, and I turned to see Raven approaching us from the direction of the building three, our destination. She wore her typical neutral, unreadable face, and I could see her eyes scanning each of us, checking out the weapons we’d built overnight.

“You three look terrible,” She said simply, turning around the way she’d come and falling into step beside us. “And none of you showered, did you?”

“We were a bit busy to worry about that, Raven,” I grumbled back. “Sparring is at—”

“Nine. I know, I know,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. “Of anyone on this team, I’m the only one who hasn’t been late to class yet.”

“You want a cookie or something?” Qrow shot sarcastically back at his sister.

“No, but breakfast sounds great right about now. Since you’re so grumpy, I suppose I won’t wait up for you.”

“I hate you,” Qrow mumbled as Raven turned to leave.

“No you don’t, little brother,” She said back over her shoulder.

“Raven certainly is in a good mood this morning,” Pyrrha observed.

I chuckled. “Yeah. She actually got a full night’s sleep. I think she wanted to rub it in.”

“Does she ever… You know, become less…”

“Raven-y?” That was the best word I could come up with to describe my old teammate. “Eventually, yes, she dropped the act. I think that’s all it was, really, an act. Like Qrow told me earlier, she felt like she had to be that way because of the life they’d grown up in. Eventually I’d say she became my closest friend.”

“What about Gretchen? You two seem close already.” Realization flushed across Pyrrha’s face as she noticed my reaction to her question. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said, realizing how depressed I must’ve looked at the recollection of the moment Gretchen gave her life to save ours. “You didn’t know.”

**~  ~  ~  ~  ~**

The door to room 416 swung open as Tai, Qrow and I stumbled through the threshold and sprawled across the floor just inside. “Is it just me, or did that seem like there were way more stairs than usual to get up here?” Tai grumbled from where he’d flopped listlessly to the ground beside me.

“No, you’re right. There definitely were,” I agreed, my voice muffled by the soft carpet I’d planted my face into. I had to be careful. Too long right here and I’d be out like a light. “Alright. What time is it?”

“Who cares?” Tai mumbled.

“As much as I don’t want to, we have to. I dunno how long we have till class. _Ufff_ ,” I groaned, and pushed myself to my knees before standing slowly and checking my scroll. “Alright. It’s twenty after eight. Make it quick, guys. I don’t wanna know what Hargrave’ll do if we’re late again.” Tai gave a half-hearted ‘thumbs-up’ as I gathered my things and trundled across the hall. We had about forty minutes before sparring started, but the second I stepped into the shower I wished we had a lot longer. The water felt _sooooo_ good… I had to keep reminding myself that the sparring classroom was a ten-minute walk from the dorm. I couldn’t take all morning, even if I really, _really_ wanted to.

Still, the time to myself was enough to take yet another moment to consider exactly how close we’d come to a far worse situation than simply losing our weapons. Tai could’ve been killed. Heck, they might’ve just murdered Qrow and me too, if Raven hadn’t gotten us out of there. And now, we’d managed to make enemies of a criminal organization that was probably way bigger and more dangerous than any of us really knew. The thought had crossed my mind several times through the long night in the armory, and here yet again I caught myself wondering what kind of a team leader I was turning out to be. Our time at Beacon had only barely begun and already I, and every other member of my team had almost been killed _at least_ once.

That same line of thought ran ‘round and ‘round in my head until I grudgingly forced myself to turn off the water and step out onto the cold tile floor of the girl’s bathroom. I grabbed my towel and began wrapping it around myself, rounding the corner to where the sink area was located in the adjoining room. Without really paying attention, I beelined straight for the washbasin where I kept my toothbrush and went straight into an expedited dental hygiene routine. It wasn’t until someone cleared their throat right next to me that I realized anyone was in the bathroom with me at all. I cast my eyes over at whoever it was, wholly expecting that Gretchen or Talia or Lilith would be just beside me… But it wasn’t. I froze as my eyes met those of my teammate. “What the— _QROW_!” I shouted around a mouthful of toothpaste, spattering the mirror and stumbling back as I quickly willed myself to disappear. My feet slipped, and I landed hard on my butt… I couldn’t help but be glad I was invisible when I did, too. “What are you _doing_ in here?” I demanded from the floor.

“Uhh… Wondering why my toothbrush isn’t where I left it?” He replied coyly. I wasn’t sure how much he’d seen, but his expression told me that he was more or less every bit as surprised as I was. My tube of toothpaste became visible again as it sailed through the air towards him. He ducked, but not in time for it to miss. After the glancing blow, my teammate started scrambling back towards the door.

“This is the girl’s bathroom, dummy! Yours is the next one over! Get outta here, go! _GO_!”

“Okay, okay! Geez! I’m sorry! I’m _sorry_!” He replied, fumbling for the handle on the door and stumbling hurriedly out into the hallway. “I’m sorry!” I heard him call one more time from just outside the door. I sighed exasperatedly, picked myself up and re-wrapped my towel tightly before reappearing. I’d certainly made dumber mistakes before while only half awake, so I couldn’t really say I blamed him that much, but I was a little rattled all the same. It didn’t take long for Gretchen and Lilith to stick their heads in the door, quizzical looks on their faces.

“What was all that shouting about?” Gretchen asked.

“It’s Qrow. He… Well, we’re all pretty tired. He walked in here thinking it was the guy’s bathroom just as I was getting out of the shower.”

“Good thing you can turn invisible.”

“Oh yeah, you’re not kidding. Scared me so bad I slipped and my towel fell off.”

Gretchen snickered. “Oh, it could’ve been _waaaay_ worse then. But still. _Awk_ -ward.”

“I bet Talia wouldn’t’ve minded if Val had walked in here,” Lilith said with a sidelong look at Gretch. They both started snickering, which gave way to full-blown laughter after a moment.

“You two can’t be serious. Already? Are they…?”

“A thing? No. Well, not yet, anyway. Talia’s already got him to go lifting with her at the campus gym though. Like, every morning at stupid o’clock A.M… Says his left arm is gonna be way weaker than his right because of his weapon.”

“They’re cute together,” Lilith added. “That or he’s too scared of her to say no.” We all shared another laugh at that.

Gretchen leaned against the wall as I finished brushing my teeth. “So… You said you guys were all exhausted. What, you been cramming all night? Studying for that test in Remnant History tomorrow?”

“Well… No. Not exactly,” I replied. “It’s… Well, it’s kinda complicated. I’ll tell you all about it at lunch. Don’t think we’ll have time for breakfast, so it’ll have to wait until after sparring.”

Gretchen cocked her head at that. “Complicated, huh?”

“Yeah. Not really in a good way, either.”

“Hm. Well, in that case I’ll try not to send you back to the infirmary before then,” Gretch said with a cocky smile.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t get the message? Check your scroll.”

I grabbed the device from where my clothes where lying and opened it up again, selecting the ‘Messages’ tab where a new notification that I must’ve overlooked earlier blinked. The unread discussion thread was from Professor Hargrave, one of his ‘Lesson Plan’ blasts he sent out before every class. Opening it, my eyes quickly scanned through the brief outline.

**Combat Application Lab I**

**Lesson Plan: September 14**

**Team leaders, be prepared to show me what you are capable of. This class will be for me to gauge you specifically. The Headmaster and I hand picked each and every one of you for what we saw in you during your initiation. It’s time for you to prove that we weren’t wrong in our decisions. Sparring partners will be determined at the start of class, and you will be allowed to pick your own opponent if the other team leader agrees to the match. Those who don’t pair off will be assigned an opponent randomly.**

**That is all. Do not forget your reading assignments from the textbook, they will be turned in at the end of class.**

“Reading assignment? Crap. We forgot about that,” I admitted to Gretchen and Lilith.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re focusing on? You can copy mine, I don’t care. You and me are finally gonna get to spar!”

I was too tired to muster the same excitement as Gretchen, unfortunately. I managed a grin, but waved my hand dismissively. “Won’t matter if you beat me. I won’t be fighting with Scourge and Thorn.”

“What? Why not?”

“Lost ‘em both.”

“You—What?” Lilith asked, sharing the look of surprise that crossed Gretchen’s face.

“Yep. Qrow and Tai lost their weapons too. That’s what we were up all-night working on. Forging new weapons.”

“You can’t be serious,” Gretch said. “What the heck did you all get yourselves into?”

“We’re out of time,” I said, glancing again at my scroll just as the minutes ticked over to a quarter till nine. “Like I said, I’ll tell you at lunch.”

Gretchen shot me a concerned look, but didn’t press the issue further. “Alright,” She said hesitantly after a moment. “Well, we’d better be going then, I guess.”


	17. No Hard Feelings

Tai, Qrow, and I trundled along behind Team GLDN. All I could think about was falling into bed as early as humanly possible the instant classes ended for the day. Downtown Vale was a far more dangerous place than I’d ever realized before. Beacon, however, was as safe a place as I could ever ask to be. Well, aside from the sparring matches with live weapons, and the excursions into the grimm-infested wilderness that counted as field trips, and being catapulted off of three-hundred-meter cliffs, and… What was I thinking? Life at Beacon was fraught with its own set of very real dangers.

At the moment, however, they were dangers I knew. The prospect of what we’d just faced out in Vale was far, far more frightening. I was glad to have friends like Gretch, for sure. She didn’t even know what we’d just gone through, yet her encouraging smile as we made small talk while en route to class was enough for me to be convinced that it wouldn’t matter when we told her. The only immediate problem that I could think of, however, was how in the world I was going to manage to beat her with my makeshift weapon.

Just thinking about it made me fidget with the heavy chain that was wrapped about the new gauntlet I’d had to forge for my left forearm. The design of the weapon was simple, mostly since I hadn’t had a lot of time to come up with anything fancy the night prior after working on Qrow’s new Curse and Tai’s replacement tonfas. I was sure it’d be brutally efficient against single-minded grimm… But I wasn’t going to be fighting grimm in sparring, nor back out on the streets whenever things cooled down and we continued our fight against the Xiong Syndicate.

“Heard there was some action out in town last night,” Gretchen remarked casually.

I shot a look at Qrow and Tai that told not to mention anything before matching my friend’s nonchalant tone with my response. “Oh? Like what?”

“Wait, you seriously didn’t hear about it? Don’t you have a FaceSpace account? It was all over social media, people going live, videoing the whole thing.”

“The heck is FaceSpace?” Qrow asked.

“It’s a social media site on the CCNet.”

Qrow’s quizzical look didn’t fade. “Social… What?”

“Wow. You really are from the middle of nowhere, aren’t you?” Gretchen remarked. “It’s a thing you can do on your scroll to link up with friends and share pictures and stuff.” Qrow still clearly had no idea what Gretch was talking about, but she waved dismissively at his blank look before continuing. “Anyway, buncha people were going live last night. It was crazy. VNN put out a statement from V.P.D. later about it. Turns out a bunch of Tao Family gang members stole a cop car and made a run for it, they had like, half the P.D. chasing ‘em down, it was crazy.”

I shared another look at my teammates, then turned back to Gretchen and continued to feign my surprise at the news. “They get caught?”

“Don’t think so. Police think the thugs had a rogue huntsman helping ‘em, because the car they were in completely disappeared right when they got cornered. Crazy, right?”

“Yeah…” I said, trying my best to sound like I wasn’t balking at the load of garbage those crooked cops in Precinct 7 must’ve fed to the news. I must’ve zoned out thinking about it, because after a second Gretchen leaned out in front of me and waved her hand in my face to bring my focus back to earth.

“Summer?”

“Huh?”

“You spaced out there for a sec. You feelin’ alright?” Gretchen asked.

“Oh, yeah, uhhh… Yeah, no, I’m fine. You’re right it’s… That sounds super crazy.”

Gretchen sort of looked at me sideways for a sec before rolling her eyes. “Heh. Man, you weren’t kidding. You really are burned out from that all-nighter.”

“You have no idea,” Tai grumbled miserably, massaging the elbow I was sure was probably still sore from when Frankie had dislocated it.

“At least it doesn’t hurt you guys to walk,” Val complained, echoing his friend’s disgruntled tone.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Talia said, shoving Val playfully. “What’d I say? Wednesday is leg day. Leg day is life.”

“Leg day is not life. Leg day is so, soooo not life.”

“You’re just mad ‘cause I can squat more than you, carrot-top.”

“No, Tal. I’m mad ‘cause I can’t feel my legs.” All six of us, including my teammates, got a laugh out of that at Val’s expense. With the subject safely diverted from the escapades of my team the night before, the seven of us continued on, eventually reaching the sparring classroom and taking the seats we’d more or less claimed for the semester, right across the aisle from each other on the top row by the door. Professor Hargrave was down by the door to his office at the back of the stage, talking to his mustachioed T.A. about something or other. Almost as if he were aware of our entrance, however, I saw him cast a look up towards my team. His eyes seemed to rest on each of us for a disconcerting moment, but it was only a moment, and his face betrayed nothing that told me he knew the truth about what had transpired last night before returning to his conversation with his assistant. I shook my head. I was being paranoid, and that was it.  

The alert sounded as the large digital clock that was projected at the center of the back wall of the fighting stage ticked over to nine-o’clock. The sharp, clanging sound silenced background conversations and prompted everyone to sit down. Without wasting a moment, Hargrave turned to address the crowd. “Good morning, students,” his voice boomed. “If you have been paying attention to the lesson plans that I send out, you would already be aware that those of you who did not find yourself filling the role of team leader at the start of this year are going to simply get to stand by and observe today. That does not mean you’re free to act foolishly whilst your team leaders duel on stage. I expect you to pay attention to what your leaders do, and don’t do, that perhaps made them stand out in the mind of your headmaster, as he was ultimately the one who had the final say on their selection to the role. I must admit, I disagreed with a few of his choices.”

I wasn’t imagining it. That time he definitely looked pointedly at me. Hargrave continued, “I will first open the sparring floor up for team leaders to directly challenge their peers. Who will go first?” Gretchen and I shared a look, but before either of us could raise our hands, two other team leaders whose names I hadn’t bothered to memorize beat us to it.

“We’ll go, Professor,” the first of them said.

“Ah, good. Mr. Cerulean, Ms. Fiorenza, come on down.” The names of the boy and girl along with their team affiliation flashed up onto the holoscreens on the stage as Professor Hargrave’s fingers danced over his tablet screen. Tycho Cerulean, leader of team TQSE, and Shani Fiorenza, leader of team SHDW. Before now I’d only known them by their weapons. Tycho used a two-handed dadao with a gleaming blade like a giant curved meat-cleaver, along the spine of which were spaced nine thick circular rings. I’d only ever seen pictures of that style of sword in weapon magazines, and never really understood what the function of the rings were. The sword was intricately detailed, with a roaring dragon’s head carved into the handguard that the blade protruded from, the pommel taking the shape of a four-fingered set of talons that gripped a golden ring. A red-and-gold braided tassel that was knotted at the distal end hung from that ring.

Shani’s weapon seemed rather plain by comparison, which was enough to convince me there was more to it than I could easily tell. The long, steel-hafted heavy spear’s point was nearly two feet in length, a finely-edged blade the size of a short sword in addition to the already two- meter long body of the weapon. I was almost positive it was detachable, but even still. That weapon was hiding something I hadn’t had the chance to see in action just yet. The two opponents leapt up onto the combat stage and began to circle, slinging a little banter back and forth that I couldn’t quite hear from the stands. “Fight!” Barked Professor Hargrave, dropping his hand like he was officiating the start of a race.

Tycho surged forward, closing the distance that Shani clearly wanted to keep between the two of them. Her weapon was better when there was a little separation between herself and her target, but the leader of team TQSE clearly preferred to get in his opponent’s face. Unfortunately for Shani, Tycho was the faster of the two fighters due to the taller boy’s long stride. It didn’t take more than a couple seconds for him to be well inside Shani’s effective reach, sending her to her back foot as she tried to get away. A powerful downward strike from Tycho’s dadao caused Shani to dodge left and attempt to parry with her spear’s haft, but to her surprise, the bigger guy completely stopped the momentum of the sword swing as it reached torso-level. Abruptly stopping that much weight mid-swing like that would’ve taken an immense amount of strength… Unless some kind of ability to arrest and re-direct kinetic energy was actually Tycho’s semblance. The instant he stopped the strike that had clearly been intended to get Shani to dodge laterally, he performed a sort of diagonal flip around his own sword hilt as it hung in mid-air, kicking his weapon twice. The first kick, a finessed tap of the leading edge, rotated the weapon’s blade parallel to the ground. That was followed by a sharp, booted strike with his other foot to the ringed spine of his blade. That second kick sent the dadao’s heavy, honed edge straight towards Shani as she continued to try to create distance. I could tell she wouldn’t be able to dodge this one. As Tycho landed, he ripped back on the knotted braid that hung from his hilt with one hand, using his other hand as a pivot on the mid-point of his grip that increased the speed and power of the swing even further.

The surprise move hammered into the haft of Shani’s spear with devastating force. She wasn’t able to stop the full power of the strike as the massive blade plowed through her stance and her effort to brace against its weight crumpled with the impact. That kind of power could’ve easily beheaded a boarbatusk, but fortunately for Shani, her spear stopped her from taking too much of the bite of the blade directly on her aura. Still, the meter projected on the wall behind the two fighters showed her aural output drop thirty-seven points, followed by a further ten as she sailed back and slammed into the rear wall of the fighting stage. It wasn’t looking good for the leader of team SHDW… Or so I thought until I caught a glimpse of her face. A cocky grin spread from one corner of her mouth as she pulled herself off the wall. Tycho had given her exactly what she’d wanted: separation. Now it was Shani’s turn to push forward, skillfully keeping Tycho as bay with the point of her weapon while pressuring him towards the edge of the stage.  She had a serious reach advantage, and more than a few of her jabbing strikes found their mark she Tycho backed up and searched for an opening. His aura dropped steadily, five points here, eight points there, two points again, until he and Shani were actually neck and neck.

            “Why isn’t he fighting back?” I heard Tai grumble confusedly from beside me. “Thought he had the bout in the bag!”

“He’s analyzing her pattern,” I replied the second the realization hit me. Shani’s strikes were predictable, and the way she moved to keep Tycho in front of her was naught more than simple and reactionary footwork. The pattern was varied enough perhaps to make her attacks difficult to block by the unskilled defender. Tycho clearly wasn’t unskilled though. He’d been carefully controlling how much damage his aura took to ensure Shani would keep up the pressure and he could get a better read on her technique… So, what was he waiting for?

I got my answer almost as it seemed Shani would win by ring-out. Her grin spread wider and she jabbed overzealously to finally knock her opponent back onto the lower floor of the sparring classroom… But Tycho’s sudden weight-shift to her weak side caused the smile to evaporate. The blade of her spear met empty air and the over-extended strike was enough for Tycho to capitalize on. I think I saw what he’d done before Shani even realized it. She tried to bring her weapon back and again create distance, but couldn’t. Tycho had angled his dadao just enough to allow the spearpoint to pass through one of the rings on the back of his blade, before torqueing the weapon to trap his opponent’s spearhead completely. A quick shoulder-roll forward to inside Shani’s reach ripped the spear from Shani’s grip. Tycho tossed the spear aside and I heard the rest of team TQSE begin cheering loudly over the shouts of dismay from the guys in team SHDW. Shani, now completely without a weapon, desperately handsprung back to avoid the salvo of furious strikes that Tycho was trying to use to bring the bout to a swift end.

Within seconds, she was back against the rear wall of the fighting stage again. Tycho laughed, his gleeful exclamation turning into a battle roar as his dadao again flashed downward in a strike that looked every bit as powerful as his first had been. It was over…

…Or was it? I saw Shani reaching up. The millisecond before Tycho’s blade would’ve utterly devastated what was left of her aura, her hands clapped together and her outline blurred. The sword clove through the afterimage and hit the reinforced steel of the floor where Shani had been with a resounding ‘ _CLANG_!’ About three meters behind Tycho, Shani reappeared, first as a blurred silhouette, then becoming solid only after the briefest of moments. Tycho whirled, realizing that Shani’s semblance was, in fact, some kind of instant short-range teleportation. It was too late. The leader of team SHDW had her weapon back. A shower of hidden shuriken that Tycho kept in a pouch beneath his armored trench coat sailed towards her, but she dodged by vaulting on her spear’s haft straight over their trajectory. Her leap ended in a cartwheel _towards_ the charging Tycho, a move that seemed pretty far outside of her typical fighting style. It didn’t take long for the reason behind her bold move to become apparent. As Tycho’s dadao sailed down once again, Shani teleported inches to the right. Just as I’d suspected, a twist of her long spearhead released its socket from the haft, and the second Tycho’s sword rang out against the sparring floor, she jammed the short blade through one of his rings and into a chink in the floor’s hardened tile plating. Now it was the dadao that was trapped.

Before Tycho could rip the head of Shani’s spear from where it lodged his blade, she teleported a third time, directly behind him. She held her spear haft behind her back as she braced and clicked a small catch above the knurled forward handgrip. Inside of a second, her weapon tripled in length, the blunt end where the spearhead had been moments before catching Tycho solidly in the small of his back and launching him forward… Straight off the stage and into the wall of the raised stands. Wild cheers erupted from team SHDW as their leader breathed a sigh of relief and exhaustion, wiping her forehead as she retracted her spear. Twirling the haft once, she seated the socket of the spearpoint that was still jammed into the stage back into its locked position and yanked it from the tile. She leapt off the stage after retrieving Tycho’s sword, shooting her opponent a friendly grin as she handed him his weapon back and helped him from the ground.

“The victor is Team SHDW’s Shani Fiorenza,” Hargrave thundered matter-of-factly. “I personally despise the tournament-style rules they force me to abide by in this classroom. Back when I was headmaster, every sparring match had a five-percent aura-level cutoff, and ring-outs were not even remotely considered match-ending events. Yes, injuries tended to be a little more common, but the previous generation of huntsmen to graduate here under my leadership didn’t get the false idea that just because you can push an opponent over some imaginary line that you win the bout. By this academy’s current standards, I must say well done, I suppose. Know, however, that killing an enemy is the only real way to ensure that they can no longer ever pose a threat to you again.” Hargrave’s eyes again settled on me after his gaze swept the audience, and I flinched. There’s no way he could’ve known that I’d had to do exactly that last night, but the comment was eerily fitting all the same. Frankie’s face as his last words gurgled through the blood in his throat and the life left his eyes flashed through my mind’s eye.

“Any more volunteers for our next bout? Every team leader in this room will have a fight today. This is your last chance to choose your opponent before I begin assigning matches randomly,” Hargrave continued.

“Summer and me, sir!” Gretchen called out before anyone else could respond to the professor’s invitation for more challengers.

“Ms. Rose, do you accept?” Hargrave rumbled.

“I… Uhh, yeah. Yes sir.”

“Good. Then our next match,” the professor announced as he selected my name and Gretchen’s from his tablet and our pictures appeared on the back wall of the sparring stage, “Will be between the leaders of team STRQ and team GLDN. Fighters, to your marks.”

“No hard feelings, right?” Gretchen smiled, holding her fist out for a knuckle-bump.

“I guess it depends,” I said, returning the gesture before making my way down the aisle alongside my friend.

“On what?”

“On how bad I beat you.”

“Psh. Please, it’ll be the other way around,” Gretchen shot back, rolling her eyes and smiling confidently.

“We’ll see.” We reached the base of the stage and separated, each taking our positions on opposite sides of the ring. The unfamiliar weight on my left forearm made my balance feel off. Any other day, if I’d had Scourge, I would’ve loved to spar with Gretchen. Now, however…

“Fight!” Hargrave shouted from in front of the stage, dropping his hand like an executioner’s axe once again.

Almost before the command to start the bout had left our professor’s lips, I willed myself to disappear. I’d seen Gretch fight. I was going to need every advantage I could get. “Oh, how’d I know that was gonna happen?” Gretchen said, smiling a little too confidently for me to think unreeling my makeshift chain-sword and charging in was any kind of a good idea just yet. Why was she so confident? Gretchen backed up, putting her back against the semicircular rear wall of the fighting stage. It limited her avenues of escape, true, but it also limited the directions I could attack from. Simple, sound strategy. What I didn’t understand, however, was why she did what she did next. Switching her grip on Quake to hold the enormous sword back-handed, Gretchen knelt. She was leaving herself wide open. Holding her free hand about a centimeter off the floor, my friend closed her eyes… Before her head snapped immediately to face my direction and she swung Quake in a wide arc in front of her.

A wave of pure gravitational energy, the leading edge of which glowed with eerie violet light, flashed towards me. I had no idea Quake had been capable of firing off directed blasts like that. I tried to duck, but it was too late. The wave caught my chest as I dropped my weight, and for a disconcerting moment I literally began to fall horizontally along with the pull of the gravitational pulse. It was too weak a field to keep me caught up in it all the way to the edge of the stage, however, and I tumbled to the floor as Remnant’s gravity retook control over my trajectory. “What the—How can you see me?” I called out as I picked myself up, perceiving and only narrowly avoiding another blast of Gretchen’s gravity.

“I’ll tell you all about it after I beat you!” I’d never seen such an immensely heavy sword swing so fast, like it was made of paper. I knew from experience it wasn’t. The thing must’ve weighed at least eighty kilos, but Gretch was swinging it around and firing off those small blasts of gravity with no more difficulty than it would take to swing a small dagger. What worried me most, was that every single swing was perfectly aimed, no matter which way I shifted, no matter how I dodged, Gretchen seemed to know exactly where to send her next strike’s wave of redirected gravity.

“So, your infamous advantage has failed you, Ms. Rose, what will you do next?” Boomed Professor Hargrave from off the stage. I looked back at him. The knowing look I saw playing around the corners of his usually dour-set features told me he knew exactly how Gretchen was tracking my movement. Knowing he knew something about Gretchen’s abilities that I didn’t was frustrating, but I couldn’t let it get to me.

“Fine. Might as well not waste the energy,” I said as I reappeared and locked eyes with the girl who, for the moment, I couldn’t acknowledge my deep friendship with. Our matching competitive grins and the heat of the moment made me forget how utterly exhausted I was. Taking hold of the five-inch length of chain that dangled in front of my left hand from the guide loop on my heavy new gauntlet, I reached behind my back. A powerful electromagnet at the tip of that chain—that I may or may not have torn out and repurposed from the motor of one of the armory’s belt grinders—began to pull towards its matching connection on the hilt of the brutally simple blade that occupied Scourge’s magnetic holster on my back. The two powerful magnets clacked together and their accompanying quick-connects engaged, and my hand slid up the chain to take hold of the hilt of my extendable blade.

“Oh, so that’s what you spent all night making. Not as flashy as I’m used to from you, Summer.”

“It has room for improvement,” I shot back coolly as I drew the sword. A click of a trigger I’d installed on the hilt allowed the tip of the spade-like blade to flash from within the wide, hollow body of its lower section. At full length, it was barely over two and a half feet long, easily dwarfed by Quake. _Here goes nothing_ , I thought, before flicking my wrist back to actuate a toggle on the back of my gauntlet. In response, the tensioning magnets within the reel that encircled my forearm and wrist flipped their polarity, and the five meters of thick chain that had been held in a tight spiral around my arm began to shoot out of the guide loop at my wrist as the reel spun opposite the coil’s direction. Leaping up and forward, I heaved my blade straight at Gretchen. She prepared to parry, dropping her weight and raising the broad face of her sword, putting Quake between the incoming chain-sword and herself. My weapon would’ve glanced harmlessly away… If I hadn’t twisted my body midair and waited for the perfect moment to sling the length of chain and its deadly attachment into a full three-hundred and sixty-degree arc. I was at the apex of my leap as I completed the twist, with my blade singing through the air at the end of that chain and gathering considerable momentum. Gretchen hadn’t expected me to be able to switch the angle of my attack so effectively, otherwise she would’ve blocked the ensuing hit easily.

As it was, my unnamed chain-blade slipped around behind and beneath Quake as Gretchen held it between herself and me like a shield. I heard her exclamation of surprise and pain as it slammed into her shoulder, biting deep into her aura and knocking her ever-so-slightly off balance. I completed my leap with a flip, flicking my wrist back once again to redirect the pull of the reel in my gauntlet and retract the chain. My feet planted onto Quake as I caught the hilt of my sword, and I kicked back, hoping to send Gretchen sprawling back into the wall. She barely moved. Damn her semblance. It was like I was pushing off against a boulder. Her control over gravity made it so that she could effectively control her own weight in a fight.

As if in response to my line of thought as I leapt back, Gretchen turned away from me. I figured she was just going to use the wall as a springboard to attack me mid-air, but Gretch’s next steps proved me very, very wrong. Instead of kicking off the back wall of the sparring stage and leaping, Gretchen just began to run. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, before I remembered Gretchen telling me she was capable of short wall-runs when I’d first learned of her semblance.  Her head craned up to catch sight of me as I landed below her, and still she sprinted, up, up, up the wall and onto the ceiling. I heard the entire class cheering and exclaiming their disbelief at her abilities. I again extended the chain of my sword, but kept its hilt in hand and readied for whatever she was getting ready to do. Finally, she skidded to a halt as she hung upside-down directly above me. She crouched, like she was going for a high-jump record or something, only her body was oriented straight down with eyes locked straight on mine. Quake’s point angled straight at me like a literal sword of Damocles. As I stared down the business end of Gretchen’s sword and braced to dodge, I almost didn’t notice the violet glow of Gretchen’s aura at her feet. She’d redistributed all of it to allow herself to hang for so long. Now was my chance.

I too gathered all of my aura. I felt it’s humming, tingling power in my legs as I braced, before releasing that energy and rocketing skyward. At the same instant, Gretch pushed off the ceiling and sped like a comet down to meet me. Everything seemed to slow down, though I knew the clash must’ve occurred with blinding quickness for everyone watching. My short sword, which I held in a back-handed grip, met Quake as the two blades reached the same point in space. The chilling sound of two chunks of razor-sharp tempered steel skating past each other echoed in my mind… As did Gretchen’s next words: “Game over, Petals.” My eyes dropped from hers to the finger she had poised over the trigger on Quake’ grip. _Crap_ , I thought helplessly, realizing what she was doing too late as that finger depressed the toggle and the two halves of Quake’s blade separated. I saw point-blank the spot from which the insanely intense blast of gravitational energy surged when the loop in her guard broke its infinite feedback cycle. That discharge caught me up like a tsunami wave and I, powerless to brace myself in mid-air, could do nothing but fall with the redirected gravity blast across the classroom, over the area in front of the stage, and back into the stands where the rest of my classmates sat. Not a single person sitting in the elevated auditorium-seating was able to keep their seat. Backpacks, scrolls, everything went flying back as the violet wave of energy caught them in its swell as well. I slammed into the back wall by the door, right behind Qrow, before thudding to the floor like a rock as normal gravity once again took back over. After a stunned second I tried to stand, but my disorientation and dizziness was so complete I only managed two steps before toppling down the steep stairs to the bottom level of the seating area.

Murmurs of shock and excitement mingled with the annoyed grumbles of students who’d had their scroll screens broken and coffee spilled by the effects of the spectacular gravity wave. I looked back up and over the lowest hand rail in time to see Gretchen standing, the tile flooring of the sparring stage cratered from the force of her meteoric decent. That steel-plate tiling had taken full-force blows from Tycho’s dadao in the last match without so much as a scratch, and Gretchen’s landing had still managed to literally blast it apart. Looking past her, I saw the alert on the holoscreen with my name on it.

**OUT-OF-BOUNDS!**

**AURA LEVEL BELOW SAFE LEVELS!**

Man. She’d got me on aura level AND ring-out. I looked dissatisfiedly at my sword and chain, but realized after a moment that there wasn’t much else I could’ve done differently with Scourge and Thorn to change the outcome of the battle. Gretchen had just had my number. I had to find out how she’d been able to ‘see’ me through my semblance. Tai’s hand appeared in my peripheral vision. I grabbed it, still staring down at the stage, and my teammate hauled me to my feet. Gretchen waved up at me, grinning ear-to-ear. _Sure. Rub it in. I’ll get you next time_ , I resolved then and there.

Down on the floor in front of the stage, Professor Hargrave was looking down at his teaching assistant as the squat, heavily built huntsman picked himself up from the undignified sprawl Gretchen’s weapon blast had sent him into. I didn’t think Hargrave had so much as stumbled through it all, though, like he’d been expecting it. He stood, utterly steadfast as he observed the damage to his stage. Finally, he spoke. “Impressive, Ms. Rainart. I can see you and your elder brother share some of the same tenacities in battle. And you’re not entirely lacking in skill or power, that’s for certain. All in all, well done… Ms. Rose!” He belted out as he turned.

“Yes sir?” I replied shyly from up in the stands.

“That was probably the most complete dismantling I’ve ever seen between two first-year students in all my years of teaching. I’d have thought your father would’ve taught you a bit better. Your weapon. It’s clear you’re unfamiliar with it. I seem to remember your primary weapon being a dust-enhanced whip, correct? Backed up by a retractable sword with a blade that can vary its angle on the fly? Ingenious tools, truly. What, pray tell, happened them?”

“I… Uh… I lost them. Goofing around at the Beacon Cliffs with my team, sir.” I shot Tai and Qrow a look, and they began to nod in agreement. “They fell, and I haven’t had a chance to go down there and look for them.” The improvised lie didn’t seem to convince my professor.

Hargrave rolled his eyes before letting out a long sigh of exasperation. “To think you’re the child of Cedric and Leila Rose.”

The comment stung. Anger welled in me, replacing the embarrassment of loss. I tossed aside my inclination to hold my tongue and heard myself snap, “Shut up. You don’t know the first damn thing about me _or_ my parents.”

“On the contrary, Ms. Rose,” Hargrave rumbled back. “I was the headmaster when your parents were students here, as I’m sure you’re aware. Teammates with a talented girl by the name of Riza Midnight and our very own Headmaster, Professor Tobias Ozpin. Team ORCL was the best I’d ever seen up to that point, and no other team has rivaled them since. They were troublemakers in their day too, you know.” There it was again. That look, pointed and intentional.

There was no way around it. He might as well’ve just called us out right there… Hargrave _knew_ what STRQ had done last night.

“Too bad it seems STRQ won’t live up to the legacy its leader’s parents left behind. It’s not as if that legacy helped your mother at all, but still.” The snide, venomous remark bit deep. The sting of defeat only exacerbated the rage I could feel building in my chest. I took a step forward and started to crouch to leap at the professor. It was probably the stupidest thing I could possibly do, but _nobody_ talks that way about me or my family. The second before I would’ve charged straight into an expulsion for assaulting a professor, Tai’s hand gripped my upper arm and Qrow’s took hold of my opposite shoulder.

“Come on, Summer. Pick your battles. This one ain’t it.”

“Yeah. We’ll show the old man one day.”

I growled, making sure to allow the gleam of my hatred for the professor and ire at his comments to show through clearly in my expression, before grudgingly following the two of them back up to our seats. Even Raven was sitting nearby for once, and she and I traded looks as I sat down. Was that… Compassion? Approval? I hated how hard she could be to read. Whatever her face portrayed, it was distinct from her usual neutral scowl.

“Well. Now that that’s over with, who will follow Ms. Rainart’s excellent performance? Anyone? Very well,” Hargrave said. “Carl Eberht, Team CMSN. Lucius Serrano, team SLTE. You’re up, gentlemen. A hard act to follow, I realize, but do try to impress me.”

I spent the rest of the class fuming. I didn’t pay attention to the bouts, not even to the weapons used by my various fellow team leaders. Even when Gretchen reached the stands and sat back down across the aisle from me, I didn’t turn to look at her. She sent me her copy of the homework assignment, which I passed to Qrow, Tai, and Raven. I wasn’t gonna turn it in. No way. Not only did Hargrave know about our near-catastrophic encounter with the Xiong family, which was another mystery in and of itself, he had the… The nerve to taunt me and insult my family? In front of the whole class? Once again too, the fact that he probably yet another person who knew more about my own mother than I did burned in the back of my mind. It was infuriating. When the bell rang to release us for lunch, I stormed out without so much as a glance in Hargrave’s direction. I felt a hand on my shoulder as I burst through the doors and onto the commons, but I shrugged it off.

“Easy, Summer. Slow down.” It was Tai.

“Leave me alone, Tai.”

“Not gonna happen. Listen. You’re feelin’ some kinda way right now. I get it. That’s some screwed up stuff Hargrave said back there. But you were about to attack him. You know what would’ve happened to you? To the team?”

“I don’t give a—”

“Yes, you do. I know you do. You think admitting it makes you a weak leader or something, but you’re wrong. Yeah, Hargrave might be an asshole. But attacking him would’ve gotten you expelled and the team split up.”

“Listen, Summer, I know that was uncalled for from Hargrave and everything,” It was Gretchen’s voice now, over my other shoulder as I continued to stalk dourly away from the auditorium building. “But you can’t let it get to you.”

“Sounds to me like he has it out for you. Any idea why?” Qrow added from behind me.

“Easy. He knows what happened last night.” Tai and Qrow halted, and I stopped as well, turning to face them.

“How… Are you sure?” Tai asked, dumfounded.

“Absolutely. He kept shooting me these looks, at key points too, like after that little spiel of his about killing to make sure your enemy can’t hurt you again, and when he called Team ORCL troublemakers and compared us to them.”

“That’s…” Tai started to say. He was trying to rationalize what I was telling them, but eventually he sighed. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Question is, if he knows, why hasn’t he called the police yet?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down,” Val interjected. “What do you mean, call the police? What _happened_ to you all last night? What are you _talking_ about?”

“You promised you’d tell me at lunch,” Gretchen reminded me. I sighed.

“Never promised anything, but… I guess,” Turning to Qrow, Tai, and Raven, I raised a questioning eyebrow, soliciting their final approval on whether or not we’d get GLDN involved in the war against the Xiongs. Qrow nodded, as did Tai. Raven shrugged indifferently. “Aright. At lunch. Fair warning, it’s a long story.”

“Don’t you mean it’s a Xiong story?” Tai inserted with a sly grin.

“Oh my gosh, I hate you,” I said, grinning at the horribly-timed pun in spite of myself. Qrow and Raven groaned too. GLDN didn’t catch the reference, looking back and forth at one another confusedly.

“I don’t get it,” Talia said, scratching her head.

“That’s probably a good thing,” I assured her.

“We’ll re-dislocate his arm for that later,” Qrow grumbled. “Come on. I’m starved.”


	18. Partners-In-Crimefighting

**Chapter 18: Partners-In-Crimefighting  
**

“Alright, spill it,” Talia said, the last of the members of STRQ and GLDN to take a seat in the most secluded corner of the cafeteria I could manage to select. Though I’d tried to keep far enough away from the other students in the spacious dining hall, with morning classes across all four years letting out at roughly the same times, there were plenty of people still well within earshot. We’d have to be careful, or risk word of our exploits getting around further than it already had.

That in mind, I sighed and nodded in response. I still was not quite mentally past what Hargrave had said earlier, either, but I knew I couldn’t let that eat me up all day. “Okay. I guess, uh… Well, you guys already heard about the police chase that was going on in town last night, right?”

“The one I was telling you about this morning? Yeah, what…” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed, and I could sense that she knew I wasn’t asking that question simply to make conversation. “…What about it?”

“Whatever you heard on the news… Tao family thugs with a rogue huntsman or whatever. That’s not true. It was us.”

“No _way_ ,” Val gasped, an expression of pure awe on his face. “That’s… Epic! That’s freakin’ insane! I saw the vids, they were shooting at you and everything, and you guys were so low you’d scrape paint off of people’s cars and then you just… And then they cornered you and… Dude! What’d you guys do to piss off the whole Vale Police Department?”

“ _Shhhhh_!” Gretchen shushed.

“Yeah, geez, shout it to the whole cafeteria, loudmouth,” Tai admonished his friend, his tone less that half-joking.

Val looked around sheepishly. “Sorry, I just… that’s just so friggin’ _cool_!”

“You won’t think so when we tell you why,” Tai grumbled back.

I looked at Tai. “Y’know, you should kinda set it up. Give them the straight-up background. We’re helping you, remember?”

“Don’t say crap like that. Makes me feel guilty for getting us into that craziness in the first place.”

“Don’t be stupid. None of that could possibly have been your fault,” Qrow said evenly, returning Tai’s look of skepticism at his comment with a shrug. “Tellin’ it like it is, man. None of us saw that coming.”

“If you say so, I guess. Aight. So, I guess this all kinda started when, well… I, uh… I lost someone. The other night. Someone I cared a lot about once, loved her like a sister or… Well, probably more than that if I’m being honest.”

“Tai, I’m… Sorry. That, ah… That sounds rough,” Gretchen said consolingly.

“Well, it gets a tad more complicated from there. Val knows some of this. I was a street rat in Vale for a few years in my teens. Joined up with a gang. The worst and most powerful of the ones that run Vale, actually. The Xiong Family. The girl that died… She was kinda my partner, out there. We had each other’s backs, committing petty crime, earning our keep together. But I didn’t see that life panning out. She did, and told me I was stupid for leaving when I got my chance. If it’d been anyone else it would’ve been one of those ‘I told you so’ moments, y’know? Like, ‘See, I told you this life would catch up to you eventually.’ But… It was Jade. Dead in an alley without a bit of evidence to tell me why. I decided to find out, and, well, these two tagged along,” Tai said, a look of rueful reflection on his face as he motioned at Qrow and me. “Turned out to be more of a ride than I thought.”

“Y’think?” Val answered after a moment. “Dude, you told me how dangerous those guys can be. About your run-in with that head enforcer guy, ‘Smiley’? Now you’re turning around and trying to _fight_ a group like _that_?”

“It didn’t start like that. We didn’t wanna fight the whole Family, we just wanted answers. Get in, beat some people up, make ‘em tell us anything they knew about our only lead, and that was it. That’s all I wanted. But… Things have changed with the organization, since I was with ‘em.” Tai lowered his voice and motioned for GLDN to lean closer, so as to be sure not to over project his voice to the rapidly-filling cafeteria. “It didn’t used to be the way it is now, but, my old boss, when I ended up bumping into him, told me that half of Vale P.D. is corrupt. The ones that were chasing us last night, and a lot more. No one on the honest side of the P.D. had any idea until yesterday when I tipped my, well, I guess he’s my adopted dad off about it. He’s a lieutenant, and now that he knows the P.D.’s strings are being pulled by the syndicate he’ll spread the word to the cops we _can_ trust. All the same, my little search for answers turned into something way bigger really, really quick.”

“The fate of the city is on the line,” I interjected.

“That’s not an understatement. These people… And Jīn Xiong, the Patriarch, in particular. They’re tired of working in the shadows, behind fake businesses, under fake names. They want the whole city under their thumb, and they’re _this_ close—” Tai spaced his fingers about a hair’s breadth apart, “—to making that happen.”

Gretchen looked to her left and right at the other members of her team. They seemed surprised by the solemn weight in Tai’s voice, especially Val. Given the way those two acted around each other normally, it wasn’t difficult for me to imagine why Tai’s best friend seemed so uncharacteristically serious and straight-faced as he studied Tai’s expression. He knew probably better than any of us when Tai was way past playing around. He was the one to first break the silence following Tai’s statement, too. “Alright, bro. I’m in,” was all he said, holding out his fist across the table.

Tai grinned after a moment, and returned Val’s gesture with a seemingly well-rehearsed series of knuckle-bumps, high-fives, and finger guns as the two of them ran through some kind of secret handshake of theirs. “Knew you would be, man,” my teammate replied as the handshake concluded with some kind of chest-thump into a knuckle-bump that ‘exploded’ into supernova. I couldn’t help but feel a _little_ jealous… I’d never really lived anywhere long enough to get ‘secret-handshake’ level tight with anyone.

“Not just him. All of us,” Lilith added, as Gretch and Talia nodded. “What about our professors? Why don’t we just tell them what’s going on?”

“Hargrave knows already. I’m sure of it,” I replied. “I don’t know why he hasn’t snatched us up for a meeting with the Headmaster yet. I thought we’d get expelled for sure if any of our instructors found out.”

Talia’s brow furrowed to emphasize her skepticism at my remark. “Expelled? For what? Fighting criminals? Uhhh, that’s kinda what we’re supposed to do. Why would they expel you for doing the right thing?”

“That code of ethics file Hargrave sent out when we all got here is pretty clear on that, actually,” Raven replied dryly, finally contributing to the conversation. “This city’s high council is really strict when it comes to huntsmen doing what they do within the walls. It’s called the ‘Vigilante Clause’ or something. Says that any activity in the city not endorsed by Beacon’s own headmaster and conducted outside of close cooperation with local police is illegal.”

“Wait… You actually read it?” Talia asked, the doubting look he’d aimed at me earlier quickly replaced by a raised eyebrow of surprise and a sidelong glance at Raven.

“No… I, uh, only the parts that looked important,” Raven replied hurriedly. Gretchen and I shared a subtle grin at that. I was pretty sure she and I were thinking the same thing… Neither of us had even bothered giving the code a second glance since we’d received it. I couldn’t help but find it amusing that Raven had actually familiarized herself with the rules more than I had, even though she insisted on acting like such things were beneath her.

“Well, these guys don’t play by any kind of code of conduct. Guess that means we gotta break a few rules now and again to keep up.” I caught the slight, narrow-eyed glance and shift in posture that betrayed Raven’s realization that I’d really been talking to her with that statement. I supposed what I’d said could be taken as an admission she had been right, back during the argument that had originally pitted us against one another almost a week before. I didn’t care, she could take it to mean whatever she pleased, but it didn’t change the fact that our enemies in the city would fight dirty. “Guess you could say I learned that the hard way when those crooked cops tased us and took our weapons last night, then shackled Tai to a table and beat him senseless.” I watched closely to see if she’d react again, but as usual Raven’s face remained neutral as she went back to eating, not even so much as acknowledging the concession I’d offered her. No big deal, I knew she’d caught my meaning whether she acknowledged it or not.

Though I’d really been talking to my teammate, I should’ve expected the response from the four students across the table from us. “They did _what_?” Came the surprised, near-simultaneous question from the four members of team GLDN.

“Yeah, that’s what this was from,” Tai said as he indicated the faint bruise beneath one of his eyes. “Gotta say, kinda sucks having an aura sometimes. You _really_ gotta get jacked up to get any wicked scars. I’d have a good one on this eyebrow too where my old boss pistol-whipped me if it weren’t for regeneration.”

“Okay, so, things are kinda falling into place now,” Lilith said. “You guys went looking for answers, got arrested by crooked cops, got your weapons taken… Then what? I mean, we saw you running for it on the news, but how’d you get out of there?”

“Luck,” I said, shooting a glance at Qrow. “And no small amount of help from Raven.” Raven huffed as I spoke, clearly trying a little harder to keep up that neutral façade of hers. It was true though, whether or not she accepted the credit or not. “Not gonna lie, we’d probably all be dead right now if it weren’t for her. That’s what I hope you guys get. The Xiongs… We only dealt with some pretty low-level guys, right Tai?” My teammate nodded his agreement. “Even they had no problems trying to kill him. We’ve… Gotta be willing to do the same.” For at least the thousandth time since I’d killed Frankie last night, his dying face and final words flashed through my mind. Tai put a hand on my shoulder, and I noticed Gretchen’s eyes narrow a little as if she’d noticed my pause and momentarily downcast expression just then.

“We are,” my friend replied, her tone solemn and a pensive look her deep-blue eyes. She was smart… I wondered then if she’d already put enough context clues together to realize what I’d had to do the night before to make sure we all made it out alive. She didn’t say anything for a moment as she seemed to study my face, before finally neutralizing that ponderous expression of hers and getting back to the matter at hand. “So, what’s our first move?”

I was glad she didn’t press further. Not here, anyway. I’d tell her eventually, but rather than dwell on it I looked at Tai to answer her question. He held up his hands and shrugged. “Hey, you know as much as I do now. You’re the team leader, strategy is your thing.”

I grinned. “Whatever, I think you just know I’m smarter than you.”

“Whoa, now. I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” Tai countered.

“I would,” Raven mumbled between bites of her lunch. I froze. Either I was hallucinating, or she’d just complimented me.

“Sis, did you just say something nice?” Qrow asked, incredulous.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Raven replied with but a casual wave of her hand.

Qrow and I looked at each other, and my teammate shrugged. Raven really was a puzzle, I thought. Perhaps that was her way of answering me on the whole ‘breaking the rules’ thing, perhaps it was nothing more than an opportunistic jab at Tai. I wondered then if I’d ever be able to tell with her, before continuing. “Alright. Well, our whole goal going to town last night was to try and figure out where a weapons-dealer for the Xiong family is set up. Thanks to an old, er, _friend_ of Tai’s, we got a name and a location. Trigger, a.k.a. Vasily. Industrial district, Warehouse four-two… What was it again, Tai?

“Four-two-nine. That’s northside wharfs, way out by the edge of the industrial district, I think.”

“Right. Apparently, the stockpile this guy deals out of is beneath the warehouse in some kind of underground cache. He’ll be hard to find. And he’s dangerous, an ex-assassin from what we were told.”

“What’s so important about him?” Lilith asked.

“Well, our only real lead was the wound left by the stab that killed Jade. From the way he described it,” I said, nodding at Tai, “The only thing that could’ve done it would be a blade infused with burn or shock dust. It cauterized the wound instantly. No one knows who killed her, no one saw it, all we know is that he was new in town and he killed Jade rather than pay her for a big case of dust that she’d had trafficked for him. This Trigger guy, well, he may’ve seen the weapon that made the kill. He may even’ve been the guy who sold it to the murderer.”

Lilith shrugged. “Works for me. I could probably get into that underground stockpile you were telling us about pretty easily, but…”

“There’ll be thugs all over the place, guarding it,” Qrow said, finishing her sentence.

Lilith nodded. “What he said,” she replied simply.

“We’ll need to draw ‘em away somehow,” Tai offered. “Pretty sure they’d jump at the chance to catch me, I mean, we’re all probably pretty high on their hit lists right now. I’ll be the bait.”

“You’re dumber than you look if you think you’re running a diversion like that solo. I’m coming with you,” Val insisted.

“There’s another angle you all might be forgetting,” Raven said. I’d been about to tell Tai that playing decoy was a bad idea after what’d happened last night, but I stopped the words in my mouth to hear my teammate’s suggestion. I noticed too, that everybody else at the table seemed just as intrigued as I was to hear what the Branwen sister had to say. After a pause, Raven continued, “Did Jade have a place? House, apartment, flat, whatever?”

“I mean, yeah, she and I lived in kinda a crap-hole down by Thirty-ninth and Blaylock. Dunno if she was still living there. Why?”

“She may have kept a journal. Might’ve written about that big payday she thought she had coming up. Could be some details about her client in there.”

“Journal? What, you mean like the one you ha—” _FWUMP!_ Before Qrow could finish his sentence, Raven slammed the heel of her fist so hard into her brother’s chest that he sailed back off the bench at our table and tumbled across the floor. I turned to see where he landed and… Oh. Of _course._ As luck would have it… Or, more accurately, as _his_ luck would have it, Qrow had slid right into the lunch line, coming to a stop right at the feet of Clarissa Sweete. Bubble-gum girl and her three lumbering teammates all stared down with a mix of surprise and mirth at the familiar first-year who was trying to suck back in the air that Raven had just driven out of his lungs.

“Well, well, well,” Clarissa’s irritating, nasally voice cackled. “Lookee what we have here, boys. Remember the tough-guy from last week, Dez?”

“Hehehh, yeh. I remember’m,” Dez grunted with that crooked, muscle-bound psycho grin of his. “Back f’more, ey buddy?” I hadn’t heard him speak before… He sounded every bit as dimwitted as he looked.

Qrow finished coughing and looked back up from the ground at the boy who towered over him. “Listen, _buddy_ ,” he spat, hauling himself to his feet in an attempt to get closer to eye level with Dez. “Only reason you decked me last time is ‘cause you’re a cheapshot-takin’ loser who ain’t never won a fair fight in your sad excuse for a life. So, if you’ll excuse me,” I balked as Qrow turned his back on Dez and took a step towards the table. There he goes, I thought. Making the same mistake again.

“You little—” I knew Dez wouldn’t let Qrow jab at him like that. The bigger boy grabbed for the scruff of Qrow’s neck.

What happened next wasn’t a repeat of the week prior, however. Qrow didn’t miss a beat this time. He shifted his weight to the left and ducked, just enough to cause Dez’ meaty palm to pass over his right shoulder. Qrow then grabbed the over-thrown wrist that hung momentarily by his face with his left hand, clamping down and spinning to the right and underneath Dez’ armpit. An armbar takedown. Dez cried out as his joints were strained by Qrow’s upward leverage and he dropped to one knee to alleviate the pressure. “Not this time,” Qrow admonished, raising his free right arm. Another twist to adjust Dez’ position and _CRRACK_! Qrow’s right elbow dropped as his left hand held Dez’ wrist, slamming into his captive’s back tricep. The dislocation Dez’ shoulder was audible all the way from our table, and I even saw Raven wince a little at how painful the move had looked.

Sweete and the other two of her goons looked from their fallen companion to Qrow, then back to Dez, then back to Qrow again. Bubble-gum girl’s eyes narrowed evilly as a throwing dagger ejected into her hand and she twirled it between her fingertips. “Either you got some balls, or you’ve gone and lost your damn mind, kid,” She growled as she approached my teammate. I swung my feet over the bench and stood, striding over to back him up. Tai was right by my side in a heartbeat too.

“Oh, if it ain’t the girl who’s too scared to fight without her fancy little semblance. And who’s this? Got yourself a whole team now, huh?” I hadn’t realized Raven had strode up to flank her brother on his other side until Bubble-gum girl had said ‘whole team’, but there she was, glaring at Sweete right alongside the rest of us.

“Leave us alone, Clarissa. Your guy attacked first. Qrow only defended himself. You wanna finish that little fight from earlier, that’s on you, but you’re gonna have to make the first move,” I growled.

Clarissa looked at each of us in turn, then over our shoulders us to where GLDN was on their feet and coming to back us up. “Hunh. Seems we ain’t doin our jobs, these little first-years ain’t learnt their place. Boys, we got some work to do. And you, girlie. This ain’t over. We’ll be seein’ you all real soon.”

“Counting on it,” I shot back evenly.

Bubble-gum girl scowled at me before taking a step back towards where Dez was on one knee, clutching his limp upper arm and whimpering at the pain. “C’mon, you big baby, geddup.” She kicked him in the shin and Dez stood, his expression as equally hostile towards his team leader as it had been towards us. Without another word, he gripped his useless shoulder with his good hand, grit his teeth, and wrenched the joint back into place with a yowl of pain and a glare of pure violent intent straight at Qrow.

Plenty of other students around the cafeteria were staring in the direction of our secluded corner now, with some of the further ones standing to try and get a better view of the altercation. There wasn’t much point in staying to continue to talk strategy for our next move against the Xiongs, now, with so many eyes cast towards STRQ, GLDN, and CNDY. “Let’s go, guys,” I said with a wave over my shoulder at Qrow, Tai, and Raven. Gretchen nodded too, and motioned for her teammates to follow.

“I haven’t finished eating yet, though!” Qrow objected.

“Bag it up and bring it with you then, dummy!” I shot back. Seriously, sometimes it felt like I had to do _all_ his thinking for him. For a moment I understood how Raven must feel at times. The eight of us walked off, and I pulled open the first set of double doors I reached I took a step through… Only a step, though, because after that it was as if I’d run smack into a wall.

“Whoa, slow down there, little missy,” a deep, kindly voice drawled from high above my head. I craned my head back to see who it was. I might as well’ve been trying to peer at the top of the Beacon CCT from its base, the figure was so tall.

“Hazel!” I heard Gretchen call from behind me. Before I could pull away, my face was again pressed into the enormous fourth-year student’s chest as Gretch leapt from behind me and tackled her brother with a bear-hug, smothering me between the two of them.

“Uhh… Gretchen… Air, please!” I pleaded, my voice muffled between my friend and her hulking brother. I imagine it looked quite comical, my hands waving about between the two Rainart family team-leaders as I tried to pry myself out of their embrace.

“Fine, fine,” Gretchen said after Hazel returned her hug. Rather than hop back and free me, however, she monkeyed up my back and threw her legs over my shoulders, perching there like she was a kid on their parent’s shoulders at an amusement park.

“ _Uhhhff…_ Really, Gretch?” I grumbled dryly as I stepped back. Gretchen and Quake together must’ve weighed nearly three-hundred pounds. I had to activate my aura and route it to my legs and back to keep from buckling. In response to my complaint, Gretchen simply put her hands on the top of my head and pushed herself up to almost match her brother’s considerable height.

“Shush, you,” Gretchen scolded from atop my shoulders.

“Whoa there, Sis, when’d you get so tall?” Hazel asked, ruffling his sister’s hair.

“Oh, you know,” She laughed, flexing like some kind of bodybuilder. “Started taking the same ‘roids you do, big stuff. Gettin’ swole, y’know?”

Hazel feigned offense. “Dunno what you’re implying, kid. This here’s all-natural one-hundred percent corn-fed, Vale-bred huntsman, no steroids at all. You’re just the runt of the litter.”

“I’ll show you ‘runt’, you big doof,” Gretchen laughed, squaring up and raising her fists.

Hazel just egged her on. He brought his gigantic hands up and clenched them into fists almost the size of Gretchen’s face, before taunting, “Yeah? Bring it, let’s see what you got.”

I saw Gretchen’s fist glow purple as she hauled back to slug her brother’s shoulder. Hazel braced, but the punch still rocked him back a little. Hazel’s long but well-groomed brown hair flapped around like it had been blasted by a sudden breeze in response to the gravity wave that surged through his body, and he shook his head as he made it look like his sister had really knocked him silly. She hadn’t, of course, but I still found myself feeling a little envious of their close relationship.

“Ohhkay, okay, ow. You got me,” Hazel said, grinning. “Quite a wallop you got there, sis. Your footwork needs a little improvement, but…”

“If your sister wasn’t so heavy her ‘footwork’ sitting on my shoulders would probably be a lot better,” I shot up at the elder Rainart brother.

“Fair enough. Here,” Hazel replied. Reaching out with both hands, he grabbed Gretchen’s shoulders. She gave a squeak of surprise and tensed up as the enormous boy lifted both his sister and her sword clear of her perch on my shoulders. He shot a playfully-scolding look at Gretch while he had her at eye-level. She just shrugged innocently and grinned, before her brother turned to one side and casually dropped her next to me. He made it look so effortless, not even needing so much as a spark of aura to augment his incredible physical strength.

“I don’t think I ever introduced you guys,” Gretchen said, beaming back at the rest of STRQ. “This is my brother, Hazel. Leader of team HNTR.”

“Pleasure to meet you all. I already know who you are, Gretchen told me all about team STRQ already. Sounds like you all had a heck of an initiation.”

“That and, well, we fourth-years have limited access to all student files. We might’ve scroll-stalked you all a little already,” a kind, soft voice said as its owner stepped out from behind Hazel.

“Hey Nyri!” Gretchen said, beaming.

“Hey Little-bit,” Nyri said, returning her own kindly, warm smile.

“Little bit?” I asked, looking up at Gretchen. My friend facepalmed and groaned, before shooting her brother an annoyed look.

“You told ‘em Dad’s old pet name for me?”

“What? It’s hilarious,” Hazel objected.

“I don’t think it’s hilarious,” Gretchen huffed. Two more figures, one lean and tall, the other my height but stocky and built like a power-lifter, stepped around to Hazel and Nyri’s flank.

“What’s up, guys,” the tall one said, flashing a ‘peace’ sign whilst leaning on his short, rotund companion like the latter was a convenient armrest.

“Rowan, if you don’t get off me in three… two… There we go,” the shortest of the four fourth-years that I could only assume was Titus growled. I saw a wickedly deep scar running from his left cheek by his ear all the way down to his chin. “I swear, he lives to piss me off. Titus Hornecastle. The lanky weeb here is Rowan Bourke. Like the big man said,” Titus reiterated with a nod at Hazel, “We all already know who you guys are. Made a bit of a name for yourselves with that crazy initiation.”

“Nice to meet all of you,” I said. They seemed friendly enough, but I remembered watching the last Vytal festival tournament with my dad nearly two years earlier. All four of the fourth years before me had been tremendously skilled and tenacious fighters, even then. I could only imagine what they were capable of now. Gretchen grinned and elbowed me.

“Yeah, this one here kept trying to get herself killed making sure the rest of us didn’t die,” she remarked casually.

“That’s not even true,” I protested. “I needed saving a few times too.”

“That’s the way it goes, sometimes. But you all made it out and, let’s see... Alpha Beowolf, it’s whole pack… Alpha Creep, it’s whole brood... King Widower and a whole nest of the little ones, not to mention capping it off with a Goliath. Don’t think I’ve ever heard of any team taking out so many major grimm singlehandedly,” Nyri said, listing off my group’s kill count from initiation. I hadn’t really thought about it. We’d just been trying to survive, but hearing a fourth-year list it all out with a note of admiration in her voice certainly put things in perspective.

“You say all that like it’s not normal to see that many grimm during initiation,” Tai spoke up from behind me.

“Oh, you’ll usually see a ton of grimm, but in ones and twos,” Rowan replied. “Rarely with whole packs. And even more rarely with an alpha in the mix. Your alphas were smart, too. We saw the micro-drone footage. Those big ones have seen their share of battles, and won, judging by the way they tested you, separated you out, didn’t just rush in, y’know like normal grimm. It might seem Like Ozpin is fond of throwing students into the mess and hoping they come out on top, but the little training missions out that way are usually only somewhat difficult, not dang-near suicidal. I’m pretty convinced he’d gotten some bad intel on the grimm count in that part of the forest. Don’t know who ran his recon mission to check it out before your initiation went down, but they messed it up pretty bad and nearly got your whole crop of first years slaughtered.”

“I had no idea it was that bad,” I said reflectively. “I mean, I knew nobody else got to the temple but us, but, well, I dunno. I guess I’d figured everyone else was kinda just a buncha slow hikers.”

“Only slow because they had to wade through an army of grimm. You must’ve found a crease in their numbers or something as you passed through the forest, but that only means you got the weight of it in the city later. The four of us and our class have done dozens of S&D missions out that way. None of us had ever seen that many of them out there before.”

“S&D?” Qrow asked.

“Search and destroy,” Nyri clarified.

“Basically, just go out and kill every bone-dome you can find. Extermination missions. Fun stuff, great way to let off some steam,” Rowan added.

Qrow nodded and raised an eyebrow, probably at how flippant Rowan seemed to be on the subject of those kill-or-be-killed missions. “Oh.”

Everyone in teams GLDN and STRQ looked from one to another in wonderment at the revelation. If Rowan was right, that would mean not only that there had been a spike in grimm activity very close to the school, but that someone might’ve deliberately tried to mislead the headmaster. I tucked the thoughts away… The topic was one I’d probably try to bring up the next time I ended up speaking with Professor Ozpin, since I seemed to have a knack for running into him. “Wow… I guess we uh, I guess we got pretty lucky then.”

“Luck wouldn’t explain it all,” Hazel said with a shrug. “Sometimes you just gotta acknowledge the fact that skill played no small part in you all getting out of there alive. It’s not egotistical if it’s the truth, and you damn sure convinced me. Reminds me too, guess I never thanked you for saving my little sis’ life on the bridge, Summer.”

“Aw, it was nothing, just… Ahh haha, just uh, just doing my job, y’know?” I waved my hand, trying to deflect the sentiment without sounding like I didn’t think anything of it. I realized then that the long scar from where Scourge had sliced my hand cleanly open was still clearly visible there, and I hid my palm behind my back and looked sheepishly down at my toes.

“Whatever you say, Summer,” Hazel grunted, clearly well-aware of the fact that I was wasn’t really used to the praise. “Now, I’m starved. We’ll catch you guys later, alright?”

“Sure thing, bro!” Gretchen replied, waving as we turned to head back to the dorms for the remainder of the lunch hour. I waved too, grinning that such a notoriously capable team had taken time out of their day to complement us. It felt pretty good… Until Qrow opened his big mouth.

“So, what, do you want to split up who goes to the wharfs to break into the black market and who tries to go find Jade’s journal?” Qrow asked casually as the eight of us were still only steps from HNTR.

I winced. There’s no way the older students didn’t hear that. I chanced a look over my shoulder, and saw Titus looking askance directly at Qrow. “Wait. Did you say ‘black market’?” He asked my teammate, as he paused in the doorway of the cafeteria. Nyri, Rowan, and Hazel all stopped too, each looking from Titus to Qrow expectantly.

“No! N-no, he didn’t! He said, uh, uhh…” My mind raced as I tried to come up with some way to keep Qrow’s careless mention of our plan under wraps. “Uh…”

“Stock market?” Tai mumbled under his breath to me.

“Stock market! Yeah, Qrow, uh, Qrow’s got some money in, er, real estate! Yeah. Some property down by the wharfs. Smart guy, right?”

“Gonna be a millionaire huntsman someday, huh, buddy?” Tai said, backing me up and slugging Qrow in the shoulder.

“Ow,” Qrow growled.

“Shut up, dummy, and play along.” Tai whispered urgently through his teeth, which were clenched in an awkward smile as the four members of team HNTR kind of looked at each other in confusion. Finally, Hazel just shrugged and waved, motioning for his teammates to follow, and the door to the cafeteria closed behind them. I breathed a sigh of relief, before whirling on Qrow. He held up his hands before I could lay into him though.

“I know I know I know! You covered for me though, so we’re good, right?”

Tai and I both glared at Qrow for a second, before rolling our eyes almost simultaneously and walking off with Raven and the others. “Just be more careful. I don’t think they bought it, and that far into it here they pretty much can walk into the Dean’s office whenever and tell ‘em all about what they heard from your loud mouth,” Tai hurled back over his shoulder.

“Fine, fine, whatever. They wouldn’t rat us out, they seemed like decent guys.”

“Yeah, decent guys that are pretty much professional huntsmen already.”

“Huntsman, shmuntsman. I still say they’re not gonna give it a second thought.”

“Let’s hope you’re right, Qrow,” I replied over my shoulder. “Hate to see the mess it’d cause if they all got involved. If the Family thinks all of Beacon is about to go to war with ‘em, we’d force their hand and there’s no telling how many people would get hurt. That’s why it’s just gotta be us.”

“Alright, alright. You’ve made your point, I’m sorry, okay?”

We’d only walked on ten or twelve more steps before I heard Raven’s voice behind me. “That’s exactly what I meant the other night, you know,” I heard Raven grumble at Qrow as the two Branwen twins fell into step next to each other. She must’ve been referring to a conversation with her brother that I hadn’t heard.

“Oh, shut up, Raven.” Qrow fired back belligerently.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Parent-Teacher Conference**

            HIST-112, History of Remnant. Why did I have to have such an unbelievably boring class in my last afternoon block? More than a few times, I felt my head drop like brick as exhaustion began to overpower my endurance and sleep deprivation began to take its toll on my will to stay awake. I don’t _think_ I ever actually nodded off, but even still, I didn’t blame Qrow one bit when he inevitably passed out five minutes into Professor Torstein’s rambling lecture on the geopolitical strife between Vale and Vacuo in the antebellum years before the Great War. I usually was pretty capable of at least _looking_ engaged. Right now, however, my eyes could barely focus on the subheading in my textbook that we’d been directed to open to. The big bold letters at the top of the page drifted lazily around no matter how hard I tried to focus, and though I was fairly sure the title of the section had something to do with the tyrannical rule of the Snake King in Vacuo before the war, I had little desire to actually pay any attention.

Mostly, my thoughts dwelt on our next move. I had no idea what we’d be dealing with at warehouse 429. Had Frankie’s bosses figured out what we’d gotten out of Tater? If they had, Family goon-squads would be waiting for us in force at Trigger’s stockpile. If we let things cool down, however, I was afraid our lead would go cold. And what about Raven’s point, that Jade might’ve kept a journal? That could be a much safer alternative target, but there was no guarantee it’d even be there, or that whoever went to check it out wouldn’t get spotted by a monitor just like we had yesterday evening. There were risks either way… And whatever we did, I couldn’t bear the thought of it ending as badly as our first encounter with the Family had.

Rampant doubt about every aspect of any plan I could think of choked my mind for the entirety of the lecture. Finally, however, the dismissal alarm rang. I stood quickly, slinging my bag and not even pausing to listen to Professor Torstein’s assignment that’d be due by… Did she say next class? Next week? Whatever. I needed some sleep. I needed to attack our next moves against the Xiong’s with a clear mind. I needed… My scroll buzzed once. I was already on the commons and about to make the turn onto the main thoroughfare that would lead to the dorms. I flicked the device open, saw the message and its sender, and stopped dead.

“What? What’s wrong?” Qrow asked, almost running into me after the abrupt break in my stride. I stared at my screen and reread the short message two or three more times before turning the screen towards my teammate so he could see.

**From: Professor Ozpin**

**Ms. Rose,**

**Now that classes have concluded for the day, I wonder if you could please take a moment to meet me in my office. There is someone here who would like to discuss some things with you.**

“That’s… That can’t be good,” Tai said, reading over Qrow’s shoulder. His words echoed my own thoughts perfectly.

“What, what’s up?” Gretchen inquired as GLDN caught up with us. I showed her the message. “Oh… That can’t be good.”

“That’s what I said,” Tai replied. “I dunno, you could pretend your scroll’s broken and you didn’t get the message.”

“You have no idea how much I want to,” I said, “But running from this is just gonna make things worse. I’ll see you guys in a bit… I hope.”

Tai and Qrow looked at each other before shrugging almost in unison. “Well, good luck, I guess,” Qrow said, a little ironically.

Tai grinned. “Y’know, you’re probably the worst person in the world to wish anyone good luck.”

“Oh, shut up. My semblance isn’t _that_ strong… I, uh… I think.”

“That’s it. I’m doomed,” I replied, jokingly stoking Qrow’s self-doubt. He just sighed.

“No, yeah, you probably are,” Qrow replied sourly. By his tone I think he thought I was serious. I looked back to my scroll and typed a quick response to the Headmaster.

**On my way, Professor. Who is it?**

Moments later as I broke off from my team and began heading for the CCT, the response popped up on my screen:

**You’ll see ;)**

Wait. Did the headmaster just use an emoticon? I had to look at the message again. He definitely had. I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or even more worrying. As the CCT began to loom ever larger before me, so too did my trepidation grow. The elevator ride to the top of the tower seemed to take far longer than it ought, and not because I pressed a few extra buttons to delay the trip… Though I had. Finally, however, the light beside the uppermost floor indicator flashed blue and the elevator dinged, announcing my arrival. “Access Requested,” a soft female AI voice cooed. Seconds later, the blue light turned green, and the elevator doors opened. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Professor Hargrave was standing beside the Headmaster’s desk, staring sternly at me with arms folded across his chest. Professor Ozpin himself just smiled and motioned for me to come in. The mixed signals I was getting was making me to want to explode.

“You may go, Symon,” Professor Ozpin said to the Dean as the older man stared me down.

The look Hargrave had been giving me faltered and the Dean’s head snapped back to the Headmaster. “You can’t be serious, Oz.”

“Oh, but I am. This matter is between Ms. Rose and myself. I’m afraid your presence is quite unnecessary at this time.”

“I’m afraid I must disagree, but—” I could practically hear the begrudging annoyance in Hargrave’s voice. “--It’s your school. Very well,” the dean rumbled disgruntledly. He turned to leave, stepping into the elevator I’d just vacated and disappearing behind the sliding doors.

“Quite an insistent and serious man, Dean Hargrave is. However, I do believe he takes his position a bit _too_ seriously from time to time. A man his age needs to learn when to take it easy, don’t you agree?” I nodded, unsure of what to say. Professor Ozpin’s smile never once left his face. “Now, Ms. Rose. I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Well, the answer is fairly simple. Someone we both know wished to speak to you.” With that, Professor Ozpin tapped a blinking icon on his holodesk that I hadn’t noticed until just then. A holo-projector in the center of the room buzzed to life, casting a blue shape that became more defined as the connection settled in. I froze. It was my dad.

“DAD!” I shouted, barely able to contain my excitement and surprise, rushing to the center of the room. I almost forgot I couldn’t throw my arms around him, but stopped myself before I would’ve jut careened through the blue-tinged live hologram.

“Hey, sweetie! Can’t believe it’s only been a week and a half. Feels like I haven’t seen you in months, Little Petal.”

“Uh, Dad? Nicknames? In front of…”

“Oh, calm down honey. You already know. Toby and I go way back, it’s not like he’s gonna use it against you.”

“Toby?” I asked confusedly, looking around for a third person in the room besides the headmaster, myself, and the holo-image of my dad.

“Ahem,” Professor Ozpin cleared his throat. “Yes, well, believe it or not I do actually have a first name, Ms. Rose. It’s Tobias, though lot of people in our graduating class here called me ‘Toby’. Far more than I’d’ve liked, honestly, but that didn’t seem to stop it.” I remembered then that Hargrave had actually called the headmaster by full-name earlier, but I guess I’d been too pissed off at everything else that’d been coming out of his dumb mouth to notice at the time.

“Heheh… Don’t forget ‘Ozzy’,” my dad said with a grin.

“You know, I can and will cut the connection, Rosie.”

“You won’t, though.”

‘Rosie’? Did Professor Ozpin just call my dad ‘Rosie’? And… Did my dad just punk the Headmaster? He wasn’t kidding. They _had_ been tight. Seeing the usually reserved and enigmatic man I knew as the highest authority at this school acting so relaxed was really, _really_ weirding me out, but seeing the two old friends act in such a way brought to mind some of the back and forth I’d had with my own team and with team GLDN. As hard as it was to imagine, the Headmaster and my father had been just like us, once, and in the grand scheme of things, not too long ago. A literal lifetime for me, perhaps, but not for them. “Where are you, Dad?”

“Oh, y’know. Took an airship to Vacuo,” my dad said nonchalantly, turning back from the Headmaster. “I’m, ah, I’m actually in Professor Sunstone’s office at Shade Academy right now. She was nice enough to let me call on something a bit cooler than my scroll.”

“That, and he paid me to let him use it,” a female voice belonging to someone just outside the range of the sensors on the Vacuoan end of the connection added.

“Spirit, you didn’t. That’s practically extortion, making the man pay to see his own daughter,” Ozpin chided to Shade academy’s unseen Headmistress.

“Hey!” A head popped into view along with a… Well, a less-than-polite hand gesture, right beside my dad. “What’d I say about calling me that, Oz?” Professor Sunstone snapped.

“Apologies, Sunstone. I do sometimes forget that you do really hate your given name.” Professor Ozpin looked over at the image of my dad and grinned subtly. My father caught the expression and returned it amusedly, before looking back to me.

“So, is there anything you want to tell me?” My dad asked, his voice suddenly becoming stern. My heart dropped again, like it had when I’d seen Hargrave in the Headmaster’s office earlier. The roller-coaster of emotion was killing me. What did he mean? Had this all just been some kind of set up for a parent-teacher conference about STRQ’s… ‘extra-curricular’ activities? The tone in the room had been so relaxed… Was I still about to be in a _ton_ of trouble?

I figured I’d be better off coming clean. “I… Uh… Oh, crap. Dad, I’m so sorry, I knew I should’ve called you and told you right after it happened last night but—”

“You’re a _Team Leader,_ Little petal! I’m so proud of you!”

“Team Le—Oh… _Ohh_ yeah!” I stammered. That hadn’t been what I was expecting at all. Relief flooded through me and cooled the heat of guilt that had been causing my palms and back of my neck to sweat.

“What’s all that about last night? Didn’t your team get tapped the night after initiation? They still do it that way, right Oz?” The Headmaster nodded, but gave no indication that he knew about what I’d been getting ready to confess to.

“Oh, nothing, nothing! I meant I should’ve called you last night when I finally had some free-time! I’ve just been so busy with classes and… You know how it is. Studying so hard I forgot to call you all week! Course work kinda took me off guard!” I hoped I wasn’t padding the hasty lie too much. Of anyone who’d be likely to, my dad would see right through it for sure. I decided to shut up right then to make sure I didn’t over-sell it.

“Oh, alright then. Just like your mom, and like Riza, our other teammate on ORCL. They always had their noses buried in the books too! Smartest girls in the class, y’know? I’d always be out sparring or goofing off or something, and Oz… Well, things just kinda came naturally for him. Y’know, come to think of it, I don’t remember you ever being much for studying, Toby.”

“I wasn’t. You remember right, I never did much care to spend my time buried in textbooks.”

“Not that you even needed to. Seemed sometimes like you could just ask yourself a question, think on it for a little while, and _bingo_ , it just came to you.” My dad jabbed, a hint of jealousy in his tone. “Like you had some kind of voice in your head to tell you the answer.” The Headmaster responded with a half-laugh, half-huff, waving dismissively.

“You’re exaggerating, Cedric, as always.”

“If I am, it ain’t by much, Oz.” My dad turned back to me. “Well, I’m proud of you, Summer. Oz tells me you really showed some incredible instincts out there. Your mom would be pretty stoked too, I guarantee it. I wish I could come to Beacon, meet your team, that kind of thing, I just…” He paused. Oh no. That look… I’d seen it before, I thought as my dad cast his eyes down pensively. He always made that face when he was trying to figure out how to tell me something he knew I wouldn’t want to hear. The realization hit me that the real reason he’d called probably hadn’t just been to congratulate me.

Finally, he spoke. “So, I’m, well… I guess it’s gonna be a little while longer than I thought it was going to be before I can make it over to Beacon and we can have that talk. I knew I meant to come back sooner but… It’s just not gonna work out that way, looks like.”

I knew exactly what ‘talk’ he’d meant. He’d promised to finally tell me about what happened to my mom, and who we’d been running from my whole life. My heart sank as my dad spoke, the regretful note in his voice matching the disappointment I felt. “Yeah, no, that’s… That’s fine, Dad. I get it. You’ve got some… Things to take care of.” My words and my tone certainly didn’t line up, and I knew it.

“No, no it’s not alright. I know my little girl well enough. That face right there—” he paused, reaching out like he was trying to lift my chin with his finger. He couldn’t, of course, but I looked up anyway as his hologram passed through my face. “—Yep. That face right there means it’s definitely not alright. I… Dang it.” My dad sighed, unsure of what to say.

“It’s revenge, isn’t it?” I said abruptly, remembering Lennie’s words earlier about his impression of my Dad’s mental state the last time they’d worked together.

My father’s eyes snapped to mine. I could tell he was taken aback… Confirmation enough for me that the detective’s impression had been right. “It… What? How… Oz, did you—”

“No, not a word, Cedric. I knew you’d want it that way,” the Headmaster assured his old teammate.

I decided to clear up some of the confusion for my dad. “Do you know a Detective Francis?”

“You mean Lennie? Detective with Vale P.D.? Yeah, I know him. Worked with him a lot while you were going to Signal. Why? He come to campus for like a… A class talk or something?”

“No, nothing like that. He got sent up to take one of my teammates to a… Well, he knows one of my teammates. Me and one of my other teammates went out in town with them. He recognized my last name when I introduced myself, said he knew you. Eventually he told me that, while you didn’t really say much about it, he’d arrest enough bad people to be able to tell that you were looking to settle a score. Said you had the same look in your eyes that men in jail give him. I just don’t know _what_ score.”

My dad was silent for a moment. Finally, he replied. “Either Lennie’s just that sharp or I’m easier to read than I thought. Well, he’s right, at any rate. All the more reason I wish I could get back to you right now, I just… I might have a lead, out here.”

“A lead on getting revenge for what, Dad? Come on. Everyone in this room seems to know but me. Can you at least tell me who you’re trying to get back at?”

“I…” My father sighed forlornly. “Alright. Alright, it’s time you knew. Screw waiting for me to get back. It’s a conversation I really, really wanted to have in person, Summer. But you deserve to know. Listen though, it’s not going to be easy to hear. Heck, it’s not easy for me to talk about, even after all these years. Leila… Your mother died because the people who killed her wanted to get to me. These—” he indicated his eyes, the eyes I shared with him, “—These make us a target, to some people. My mother used to tell me that our kind has made a lot of enemies over the last couple thousand years, because of our abilities. It was stupid and naïve of me to think we could just live a normal life after your mother and I settled down and had you, and it got her killed. They… They killed her right in front of me as I got home from a long mission, you know. Their leader had you in his arms too, would’ve either taken or killed you, I don’t know. All I do know is that they should’ve brought _a lot_ more men.”

“Wait… You killed them? All of them?”

My dad sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of grief or regret, like I was expecting. It was more reflective, like he was experiencing the scene again in his mind’s eye. His eyes darted back and forth like he was trapped in a waking nightmare, and the hologram distorted around his face as the sensors were rattled by his Light as it stirred. A moment later the image settled back in, and my father’s eyes were locked right back on me. “At least two dozen, probably more, I can’t remember. Your mom had put up a fight too. There were a couple bodies in the house when I went inside.”

My notion that my dad wasn’t a killer suddenly came crashing down. “Is… Is that why you always tried not to kill since then? I noticed that, all my life. You never talked about if you’d had to on your missions, and always taught me it was wrong.”

“I know. I did, and it’s one lesson I knew I’d have to teach you to ignore, one day. Some people, some… _Monsters_ , they need to be put down. People like… _Them_.” I knew the ‘Them’ he was talking about were the people who’d killed my mother, but again, Frankie’s face flashed into my mind. _Monsters_. The word echoed between my ears.

Finally, I spoke. “People like who? Who are they? Who did it?”

“I’m not really sure. I didn’t really give them a chance to introduce themselves the last time I ran into them. I’m going off the symbol they wore, here.” My dad produced an old, tattered shred of fabric that might’ve once been white, with a dingy brown stain that was probably long-spilt and coagulated blood splashed across it. “Ripped this off the robe their leader wore, after I cut him and all his men down. The symbol isn’t in any records that I’ve found over the years, but it looks a lot like the sigil of the Snake King, Reeah Opal of Vacuo.” Suddenly I wished I’d been paying attention instead of dozing off earlier. We’d just been talking about that dark time in Vacuoan history in my last class, but I’d been to burnt-out to pay any attention. The symbol on the old scrap of cloth looked like a snake, but with the distinct grimm-like markings of a King Taijitu. The creature’s black head and body coiled around that of its white counterpart and twin mouths opened and fangs bared in mid-strike.

“King Reeah Opal was my great grandfather, actually. Disgraceful, evil man. My family knows his sigil well,” Professor Sunstone said, stepping back into the range of the sensors and appearing in full for the first time. She was very short, perhaps half a head shorter than me, with a petite build, straw-blonde hair and piercing eyes that I couldn’t quite make out the color of due to the bluish color-shift of the hologram. It took me a second to realize too, but her eyes were… They weren’t normal. I’d seen all kinds of faunus, and had always been raised to treat them with the same respect I’d give anyone else, but I’d never seen one with actual snake-eyes before. I knew it was not polite to stare, but I couldn’t look away. Shade Academy’s headmistress didn’t blink a single time as she continued talking, her slit pupils holding me utterly transfixed. “The symbol on this cloth is close, but not identical to the Snake King’s old banner. The Opal standard looked more like this.” Professor Sunstone reached over to where I assumed her desk was, and I felt a strange wave of confusion wash over me as she broke eye contact. That felt… weird. What had that sensation been? I heard a muffled bump followed by an expletive. Her hand must’ve bumped the sensor equipment for the holo-projector in her office, because the connection went fuzzy and the image on our end began to sputter in and out.

“Now look what you did, Spirit!” I heard my dad chide from the discombobulated mass of static-ridden pixels before me.

“What’d I say about calling me that?” Professor Sunstone hissed back venomously. A blurry object roughly the size and shape of a coffee mug sailed into view from out of range of the scanner and ricocheted off my dad’s arm as he reached up to block the projectile.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Sunstone. You’re gonna break something else.”

“Who cares? I’ll either ‘convince’ the council to replace it, or go ‘acquire’ it from somewhere out in town. Life’s simple like that here in Vacuo, Rosie.”

“That’s hardly reassuring,” Professor Ozpin grumbled from his desk.

“What are you gonna do with that?” I heard my dad ask.

 _“_ Sometimes with this thing you just gotta—” _THUMP_!

“I don’t think hitting it will fix the problem.” _THUMP, THUMP, THUMP_! Suddenly, the image steadied and snapped back into focus. My dad raised an eyebrow and stroked his beard thoughtfully as he often did when something confounded him. “Hm. Well I’ll be. Brute force and ignorance for the win, I guess.”

“It’s not ignorance. Sneeze the wrong way in here and that’ll happen. I just can’t afford the fancy equipment for my own office like Oz, Tytos, and Leo can. This old holo-rig here responds better if you give it a little TLC.”

“If that’s what counts as TLC for you, I’d hate to see your bad side,” my dad quipped.

“What are you talking about, Cedric? I don’t _have_ a bad side,” Professor Sunstone shot back with a sarcastic grin. “Right, where were we? Oh yes.” The headmistress again leaned out of frame, grabbing and dragging a holographic image file from outside the scanner’s range, careful not to knock the calibration on the holo-projector’s sensors out of whack again. She dropped it beside where my dad held the piece of tattered fabric, then grabbed its corners and pulled the image to a much larger size. There it was, clear as day: A sigil emblazoned with a coiled black snake. This was just a regular desert serpent, however, not a Taijitu. There was no second head, no grimm markings or osseous skull-plate. What was intriguing was that the style, the orientation, the way the serpent in the old symbols was coiled like it were poised to strike… Every one of those cues matched up between the two images perfectly. It was like whoever designed the symbol worn by my mother’s murderers had just added the white half of a Taijitu as an afterthought.

“That’s all I know about this symbol,” my dad said. “It just kinda resembles the flag of a king who got deposed by his own daughter sixty-something years ago. Sunstone has offered to let me use Shade as a base while I go looking for a lost temple out in the desert that the old King had erected in his own honor. I doubt I’ll find it. There’s no record of where it was, and most legends and rumors point north, where the sand is constantly shifting. Five-hundred-foot dunes that can move miles in a year. They don’t call it the ‘Migrant Desert’ for nothing. Even still, if I were to find it, It’d probably a dead end, but… It’s all I’ve got. I’ve got to at least try and find the people who picked a fight with the Rose family. Let ‘em know I’m not finished with them yet, y’know?”

I couldn’t help but think of my team’s own seemingly dead-end search for answers about Jade’s killer. There were a lot of parallels. I knew exactly how my father felt. It was still disappointing, but… A lot of questions had been answered for me, finally. I was sure knowing them would only breed more questions, eventually, but for now, it was enough. “Yeah. I know, Dad. I get it. Go get ‘em, alright? Lemme know if you need help.”

My father laughed. “I will. I promise, sweetheart.” I could tell he didn’t want the conversation to end. He looked around, trying to think of something to say so as not to end it on such a somber note. “So, uh… Team Leader, huh? How are your studies going so far, then? Keeping your team safe and in line?”

“I…” I couldn’t answer that one truthfully, after last night. Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer at all.

“ _Ahem_ ,” I heard from Professor Sunstone. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to use this holo-projector for a council meeting. I’m already ten minutes late, but that’s nothing new. Any longer, though, and those petty old idiots will start asking annoying questions I don’t have the patience for today.”

“Of course, Sunstone. Sure thing,” my dad said. He shot me an apologetic look. “I’ll call when I get a chance, honey. Super-double pinky-swear.”

“Okay dad… I can’t wait.” I wished I could give him a hug, at least. “Love you,” I said, waving.

“Love you too.” The transmission cut out, and I was alone with Professor Ozpin once again.

“Well. I knew he wanted to speak with you, Ms. Rose. I had no idea he’d go into such detail about what’d happened all those years ago. Some of that information was new to me, as well. He’s changed a lot, since I knew him, you know. The man I just saw is choked with cares he didn’t have twenty years ago.”

“Yeah. And I’m the reason for most of them,” I said mournfully.

“I wouldn’t say that. You’re the best thing to ever happen to him. I remember when you were born, the excitement in his voice when he called me and told me about his newborn little girl. And again, when he called on the holo-projector earlier today, he was so excited to get to surprise you. It was his idea to go on hold while Professor Hargrave was in here, and that’s why I sent the dean away.”

“What… What did Professor Hargrave want?”

“Oh, nothing you need concern yourself with. He’s up here fairly often to bluster about one thing or another. Mostly, I take his council. He did run this academy well, for the twenty-five or thirty years that he did following the death of Professor Zoroaster. Sometimes, however, it’s better to let him say what he wishes and proceed to promptly ignore him. Now, as always, if there’s anything I can do, if you need someone to speak with, anything, Ms. Rose. I’ll be available. For now, though, I recommend you get some sleep. You look utterly exhausted.”

“Thank… Thank you, Professor.” I yawned, as if the Headmaster’s observation had reminded me of my utter enervation.

“Of course.” The kindly smile of the middle-aged huntsman reminded me of my father’s own. I turned and walked towards the elevator, the doors of which opened before I even had to hit the button to call it. Exchanging one more acknowledging glance with the headmaster as the doors closed, I leaned against the back wall of the elevator and sighed, the only audible expression that could possibly encompass the complex mix of relief, exhaustion, anger, and homesickness that crashed around like beach waves in my mind.

Relief that I hadn’t been expelled. Relief in my father’s words, confirmation that sometimes, human monsters did deserve to die. Relief that I finally knew what happened to my mother.

Anger at the shadowy group that had murdered the woman I’d never gotten a chance to know, just so that they could try to kill my father. Anger at Professor Hargrave, rekindled and burning now even stronger than it had during class after hearing the full account of the events he’d spoken so harshly about earlier.

Homesickness because I missed my father. For the first time since arriving at Beacon… The new experience was wonderful, and for the most part I’d made great friends. I had hope for the next few years. But for the first time since the transport had docked and I’d set foot on this plateau, I really, truly missed him. Seeing him searching for answers all alone and far away only compounded the feeling, too.

I finally reached the top of the stairs in my dorm, feet dragging all the way to our suite and to my door. Gretchen was coming from the kitchenette down the hall, and rushed to meet me as I scanned my scroll on my lock. “What happened? Is everything alright?”

“Sleep first, questions later, Gretch.”

“Oh, fine, alright. At least tell me you’re not expelled.”

“Not yet,” I said, managing a faint grin. “See you in the morning.”

“See you.”

I opened the door to my room. Predictably, Qrow and Tai were out and snoring like chainsaws. Raven was sitting on her bed, leaning against the wall with earbuds in and eyes glued to her scroll. She barely acknowledged my presence, and I barely acknowledged hers before throwing back the covers and climbing into bed, pausing only long enough to kick off my shoes, take off the jacket and blouse of my uniform, and lay them haphazardly across my footboard. I think I was asleep almost before my head even touched my pillow.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Thinking Inside the Box**

“Anything happen on your shift?”

“Not really. Two guys stopped outside, had themselves a smoke, then went inside a while ago. Looked like a pair of dockworkers to me. Didn’t think anything of it.”

“They haven’t come back out yet?” I asked, reaching over and taking the binoculars from Qrow’s hand as I crawled to the edge of the shipping office roof on the southern side of the wharfs.

“Nah. Haven’t seen ‘em,” he replied. I peered at the line of warehouses on the northern side, across the shipping lane. “They might’ve gone out the back,” he added as I scanned for movement. It looked dead quiet. The moon cast a sickly, pale glow over the whole area. Aside from that and a single, dim light above the door of warehouse 429 that flickered from time to time like it had a short, though, the area was as dark and lifeless as a graveyard.

“What do you think, Tai? Time to make our move?” I asked my teammate as he crawled up to take a position beside me, Qrow, and Raven.

“As good a time as any. We’ve been watching all night, not a sniff of anything shifty going on. Either Tater was lying, or we caught a break and they really aren’t expecting us. Either way, we’ve got barely two more hours till sunrise.”

“You’re forgetting the third option,” Raven grumbled.

“What third option?” Tai asked. I knew what Raven was going to say. She and I seemed to think more alike than I’d like to admit, at times.

“Third option is that they’ve set up an ambush,” I said before Raven could reply.

Tai shrugged. “Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. If they did, they’re probably bored by now, might even be thinking we aren’t gonna make a move tonight. We can still catch them off-guard.”

“I wish I had your optimism,” I said, reaching for my scroll. Flicking my wrist once to extend the device, I swiped over to my contacts menu and selected all four members of team GLDN before hitting the ‘send’ button. Icons showing pictures of Gretch, Lilith, Val, and Natalia appeared on my screen, outlining in green as each of them accepted the incoming connection. “Anything happening on your side, Gretch?” I asked.

“Nope. Yours?”

“Nada. We’re going for it. Remember the plan, Lilith?”

“Yeah,” Lilith replied. “Gretch and me move to the warehouse. She and I slip in through the wall, make sure it’s clear. Raven portals you and Tai over to us, then I phase through the floor to check if your intel was on point. If the stockpile is there, I’ll come back up and bring each of you down one at a time.”

“Then the four of us find this ‘Trigger’ guy and ask him a few questions,” I finished.

Raven didn’t take long to offer her own two cents. “For the record, it’s a stupid plan,” she said unhelpfully.

“You had plenty of opportunity to volunteer a better one, Raven,” I grumbled.

“Oh, I never said I had a better one. I just said this one’s stupid.”

“I guess we’ll find out. Raven, Qrow, Val, and Talia: You all are gonna move in a bit closer, but stay out of sight. Be ready to come bail us out if we get in over our heads.”

“Right,” Qrow nodded.

“Gotcha,” I heard Val and Talia affirm over the scroll link.

Qrow looked down for a sec, but then leaned over to speak into my scroll. “Hey Lil?”

“I thought I told you guys I hated that nickname,” Lilith sighed. “What, Qrow?”

“Oh. Uh, sorry. Be safe, aight?”

I could hear the surprise in Lilith’s voice as she responded. “Oh… Well, I’ll try. Thanks, Qrow.”

“What about the rest of us?” Val teased over the connection. “Want to wish us good luck too there, buddy?”

“Not particularly, no. But I will, just so you don’t feel left out, Val. Don’t die, guys.”

“You heard the man,” I said. “Not dying is important. Move out, let’s take down a weapons-dealer.” I cut the connection and looked amusedly over at Qrow. “Are you two…”

“Who? Me and—noooo. Me? And Lilith? She’s way outta my league.” Qrow denied vehemently.

“Head over heels,” Raven mumbled under her breath, shaking her head like she really didn’t believe it.

“I am _not_.” Qrow shot back, still trying to defend himself. “I just… Y’know what? Never mind. I don’t gotta explain myself to you guys.”

“You might as well’ve just said yes, it would’ve been quicker,” Tai grinned.

“Shuddup, blondie.”

“Oh, ‘Blondie’, that’s original,” Tai shot back sarcastically.

I rolled over onto my back and gazed up at the stars spattered across the black canvas of the pre-dawn sky as Tai teased Qrow and the two boys went back and forth, each trying to outwit the other with their traded jabs. Those tiny pinpricks of light above us flickered the same cold silver as my father’s eyes… As my eyes. My thoughts drifted, as often they would since my meeting with Dad and Professor Ozpin, to what I’d been told about my family’s past and the real reason for the death of my mother. It was a peculiar thing… Something I’d always been taught was my greatest gift, the only outward sign of a lineage that stretched back through a line of heroes many thousands of years old, and yet I couldn’t help but think how different—how much _better_ —my life would probably be if my mother hadn’t had to pay the price for this little ‘gift’ of ours. I sighed hopelessly at the thought. Somehow, I’d known that finding out some answers about the past that’d been kept from me for so long would only bring up more questions, more inner turmoil, at a time when I could scarce afford it. I had a mission here: help Tai bring down the Syndicate. I couldn’t let all about the past that distract me, tear me apart, fill me with doubt at a time when good people—when good _friends_ —depended on me to lead them in that mission.

As if he could hear my mind churning in the silence as we waited for Gretchen and Lilith to get into position, Tai turned and looked at me. I could sense him studying my expression, and when I returned his stare he didn’t look away. I could see the earnest, genuine concern in his eyes, reflecting in the moonlight. “You alright? That sigh usually means you’ve got something on your mind and you can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I’m fine, Tai. That’s not what that sigh meant. That was more of a ‘I hope Gretchen and Lilith are safe’ sigh.” I must’ve looked as unconvincing as I sounded.

“You always fuss with your cloak clasp when you’re trying to deflect us from asking any deeper questions.”

“I…” Sure enough, I realized then that my hands were messing with the clasp hidden behind the silver ‘Burning Rose’ on my collar. Self-consciously, I dropped my hands and folded them across my waist before looking back over at my teammate. “Ask me again sometime. Right now, we’ve got a mission to focus on, Tai.”

Tai searched my expression before nodding. “Alright, boss. You’re not getting out of it this time, though. Something’s been eating you since Professor Ozpin called you up to his office the other day.”

“Yeah, no you’re right,” I sighed again, before looking back over at him and raising an eyebrow. “What’s that sigh mean?”

“Hmm,” Tai said with a grin. “Hm. That one was tough. I’m thinking somewhere between an ‘I’m sick of Qrow’s shenanigans’ sigh, and an ‘I’m really hungry, someone get me a sleeve of cookies to demolish’ sigh.

I punched him in the shoulder. “I do _not_ eat whole sleeves of cookies.”

Tai held his hands up in mock surrender. “Of course, you don’t, Summer. Of _course_ you don’t.”

I eyed him with playful annoyance before I felt my scroll buzz twice on my belt. I whipped it out, flicking open the screen and selecting the ‘unread message’ icon. A thumbnail picture of Gretchen’s face appeared, beneath which there was but a single word:

**Clear.**

“Gretch says we’re good to move in. Raven? You’re up.”

Raven responded wordlessly, simply drawing her sword and giving a quick slash just big enough to create the rift into the warehouse. I stepped through cautiously, trying to be as soundless as possible, with Tai right behind me. I emerged into a dark, drafty space, and as my eyes adjusted I began to be able to pick out details of the surroundings. Gretchen and Lilith were to my right, crouched behind a row of forklifts. I knelt beside them as I continued to survey our situation. The heavy shelving units that were arranged in neatly-organized rows down the length of the large interior space of warehouse 429 were completely empty. At the furthest corner of the warehouse from our position, there was a small manager’s hut of some kind. The lights were on inside the hut. The blinds were down but I could see two silhouettes reclining inside, one with his feet up on a desk. It must’ve been those two guys Qrow had mentioned seeing step out of the warehouse for a cigarette break.

“Alright, those two guys aren’t paying any attention out here. If they’re Syndicate goons, or if they’re actually dockworkers, it doesn’t matter. They don’t even need to know we’re here. Lilith, you ready?”

“Sure thing,” the petite girl replied with a foxy grin. She readied her bladed bow, Silverfang, and flicked her wrist back. A single shaft flashed out between her index and middle fingers from the clever ten-arrow rapid fire dispenser built into her bracer, which she caught with a perfectly-timed two-fingered grab and nocked to the bowstring in a single motion.

“Come right back up if you find the supply area. All four of us need to be down there to back each other up in case this goes sideways,” I said.

Lilith shot me a ‘thumbs up’ before closing her eyes and concentrating. The instant she did, she sank through the floor like it were water. Tai tapped his foot on the solid concrete she’d disappeared through. “That’s such a cool semblance.”

“You sound a bit jealous,” Gretchen whispered back.

“Kinda am, yeah. Don’t lie. Sometimes you really just wish you could try someone else’s semblance every now and then.

Gretchen grinned. “Can’t say that I do. Mine’s actually pretty awesome.”

“Yeah, I’m with Gretch on that one,” I added. “I like mine just fine.”

“ _Pfff._ Exactly. You three _all_ have way cooler semblances than me.” Just then, all three of our scrolls buzzed quietly. It was probably Lilith. She must’ve found something, only… Why didn’t she just come back up here and tell us? I pulled out my scroll to see what she’d said, and no sooner had I read the one-word message, a feeling of dread washed over me reminiscent of when the Family had dragged Tai away at the precinct.

**Compromised.**

“That’s not good.”

“‘ _Compromised_ ’? What does that even mean, Lil?” Gretchen echoed worriedly.

“Whatever it means, Tai’s right, it ain’t good. We need to get down there.

“We don’t even know where the door is!” Tai murmured back.

“I’ve got a pretty good idea. The only place they’ve got people watching is that hut over there. The controls gotta be in there.” Our scrolls buzzed again. I still had mine in hand, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the message.

**Safe, can’t get back up 2 u.**

**Semblance not working for some reason. This def it tho.**

“Semblance not working?” I asked quietly. Suddenly I remembered the interrupter cuffs we’d been restrained with when the crooked cops had arrested us. Could that kind of tech be applied to a whole room? I shuddered to imagine it. This was gonna be way harder than I’d thought if that was the case. “Alright. Let’s move.”

“Do we want to get everyone else here?” Tai asked.

“Not yet. Let’s see if we can handle it. Hang on, lemme text Lilith back. I think there might be some kind of massive interrupter down there, something that kills our ability to use our auras and semblances. If she can find it, she can take it out.”

**On our way. Thugs have tech that blocks aura.**

**Look for whatever is putting out that interrupter field and take it out if you can.**

A second later, the reply came.

**No idea what thatd look like but ok.**

**Plenty of baddies down here. Be careful.**

“Alright. Let’s move. Tai, I’ll make a noise that’ll draw them out of that office. You be ready to knock them out with your semblance. Make sure you lock ‘em up good.

“Got it,” Tai said, nodding. The three of us made our way as quietly as we could to the hut across the warehouse. The two figures inside still had their guard down. Tai leapt up to land silently atop the roof of the rickety little manager’s shack, positioning himself right above the door. I rolled past the front of the shack over to the warehouse exit, a normal-sized access right beside the large overhead bay door. Gretchen hid beside the shack, out of sight unless she was needed. Once I got a ‘thumbs up’ from everyone, I knocked on the door to the warehous and jumped behind some pallets stacked nearby. I could hear the thugs inside the office grumble their annoyance.

“Who the heck’s knockin’ at four-thirty in the mornin’? Go check it out, huh?”

“Why I gotta be the one to see who it is?”

“Cuz I said so. Boss put me in charge up here.”

“I don’t remember him sayin’ either of us was _in charge._ ”

“How’s about I just shootchya in the foot. Your choice, idiot. Walk out there or limp.”

“Fine, fine. No need to go wavin’ that gun around.” One of the silhouettes stood, grumbling annoyedly as the door to the warehouse manager’s office swung open. He slammed it behind him… Perfect. Now his partner inside wouldn’t see Tai knocking him out. The thug only made it about five steps before I saw the golden flash of Tai’s fist in the dim of the warehouse connect solidly with the back of his target’s head. I rolled out from behind the pallets to catch the stiff, unconscious body of the guy before it made too much noise slumping to the ground, but he was heavier than I’d expected. I dropped him, the dull thud prompting the other silhouette to perk up and drop his feet from where he had them propped up.

“The heck was… Arnie? Arnie, what’s goin on out there?” I dragged ‘Arnie’ out of sight as the manager’s office door swung open again. The first thing that emerged from the precipice was a pistol, shaking like the hand that gripped it. “Arnie, where’d you go? This better not be one’a your stupid jokes.”

I motioned for Tai to stay hidden behind the stack of pallets. Willing myself to vanish, I crept around behind the second thug as he emerged from the shack and silently pulled out about four feet of chain on my makeshift replacement for Scourge. The Family goon took a few more steps, noticing suddenly in the dim light the foot of his compatriot sticking out behind the pallets. “Arnie, what the…” He didn’t get to finish his sentence. I sprang up from behind him, wrapping his right wrist in a loop of the chain and yanking the hand that held his gun back towards his own face. I used my left hand to throw another loop of chain around his neck, before sweeping his legs out from under him and pinning him to the ground.

“Don’t move.”

“What the… Who… What are you?”

I decided, perhaps a little rashly, to have some fun with this guy. Staying invisible, I rasped, “Tell me, mortal. Do you believe in ghosts?” My captive tensed up, beginning to tremble terribly. He couldn’t see the chains that were binding and choking him. For all he knew, the invisible presence that had him pinned with his own gun to his face might as well have been the shade of Death itself.

“I—I—I _do…_ I _do_ believe, spirit! What… What do y—you want from me?”

Holy crap… He was buying it. I couldn’t help but get even more into character. “I can… _Smell_ the evil of your aura… Its reeking stench offends me so. Your friend over there… His soul was black like yours, and I sent him to his grave when he refused to change his ways… Such a long, agonizing fall it is, to the pits of the Void… I would know. I clawed my way out of that damnable place to seek vengeance on the ones who’d wronged me many years ago. I imagine his spirit is _still_ screaming, like a little _baby,_ as it falls… Tell me, mortal. Shall I send you to meet him? The weight of your sin is greater… You’d probably fall fast enough to catch up to him.”

“ _NO… No,_ no, no, no! Spirit _PLEASE,_ I _BEG_ you, I’ll change! Really, I will! Just tell me what I need to do to rid my soul of the darkness!”

“It’s too late for you… I can _sense_ the all suffering you’ve caused in your lifetime. It _clings_ to you, weighs you _down_ like so many long, long _chaaiinnnssss…”_

“It—It can’t be too late, Spirit! Please, I’ll do anything… I mean it, I will! I will!” I almost started to feel sorry for the guy. His pleas had devolved into sniveling cries for mercy as I pretended to contemplate his ability to redeem himself.

“Hmmm… Perhaps we can work something out, mortal. I sense your desire to change is _genuine._ ”

“It is! It is! Please, I’ll do anything! I like living!”

“As did _I,_ once! That was _stolen_ from me by someone who’s aura is even blacker than _yours…_ An assassin. I can… _Smell_ … his presence beneath us, but I need to know how to access the hole he’s crawled into. It’s _time… For him to meet his Dooooommmm…”_

“Wait… Can’t you just… I mean, ha… I guess you don’t ‘walk’ really, but can’t you just like… _float_ through the floor?”

“ _SILENCE._ Being a _damned_ soul is nothing like it is in the _MOVIES.”_ I tightened my grip on the chain about the terrified man’s throat.

He gagged a bit, but managed to choke out an apology, like a good little mortal. “ _Ackkkh… I’m sorry_ … I meant no disrespect, spirit! I swear! The man you’re looking for! His name is Trigger! Vasily Häyhä, he’s an ex assassin for the Family!”

 _“I KNOW_ the assassin’s _name…_ Now tell me how to get to him!”

“You need… It’s biometric, a couple of us got the door coded to our handprint. I’m one a’ the guys that can get you in there.”

“I _could_ just rip your soul from your body and drag your corpse over there myself you know.”

“AAAAHH, NO! Please, _PLEASE_ no. I said I’d change! I meant it! I’ll get a new hobby… Ummm… Pottery! I’ll make pottery. That’s peaceful, right?”

It was all I could do not to bust out laughing. “Hm. Indeed. Perhaps you can make the urn to hold Trigger’s ashes when I’m done with him?”

“Sure thing! Yeah, I… Just lemme up, I’ll open the stash for you!”

“Hmm. Very well. On your _feet,_ mortal.” I pulled the man to his feet, keeping his neck secure but releasing his hand. He dropped his pistol voluntarily. I guess he thought it wouldn’t do him any good… Against the _dead._ I walked him back into the manager’s hut, where he knelt and fumbled beneath the desk he’d had his feet propped up on earlier. After a moment, a hidden sliding panel extended. Built into the panel was a handprint scanner. He placed his palm on the device, which blinked red twice before lighting up green. A row of small shelves around the side of the manager’s shack slid to the side, and I heard a mechanical whirring as the slab of concrete that had been beneath those shelves lifted up to presumably expose some sort of stairwell down into the underground area.

“There! I got it, I opened it for you, spirit! N-now… Will you let me go?”

“Of _course,_ mortal _…_ I’m a soul of my word, after all. Get out of here. Your _pottery_ had better not be overpriced.”

“Oh, no, right! Yeah, very affordable pottery! I swear!” The man breathed a sigh of relief as I unwrapped the chain from his throat. He chanced a look around behind him… I couldn’t help but wrap my cloak tightly about my shoulders, draw up my hood, and allow my aura to flicker. I shimmered into and back out of view, the chain of my weapon wrapped around my own neck and dangling from my hands like I really was a tormented soul that’d escaped from ‘the Void’. “Oh _Gods!_ ” He shouted, turning and sprinting out the door to the manager’s office. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he banked a ninety degree turn at full tilt and burst through the door to the wharfs, running like the devil himself was chasing him to his end. I reappeared fully and retracted my weapon chain, then flicked open my scroll to shoot Qrow a text.

**Don’t worry about that guy. He’s… Turning over a new leaf.**

**The heck did you do to him?**

**Tell you later.**

I stepped out of the office after sending the message. Tai stood and stepped casually around the stack of pallets, leaning against them and shooting me a broad grin that he was trying hard not to let break into unrestrained laughter. Gretchen had the same look on her face as she walked around from her hiding spot. “You enjoyed that _waaaay_ too much.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Too well,” Tai said, pointing over to where I’d had the now ex-thug pinned. “There’s a wet spot on the ground right there. I think he peed himself.”

“Not surprising. Scared him straight _and_ scared the piss outta him. I wonder if he’ll make a decent potter. I could use a little something to spruce up the dorm room a bit. Tai, can you tie that other guy up?” My teammate shot me a look that I’d seen on his face a few times before, usually right before he made a really bad pun. I held up my hand in an effort to stop him. “No, nope, don’t you dare—”

“Of course, I’ll _Tai_ him up, Summer… _Xiao Long_ of a rope d’you think I should use?”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Okay, fine. Not usually. Right now, though…”

“That one was actually pretty good, Summer,” Gretchen said, clearly trying not to giggle.

“Gretch, don’t encourage him. Tai, there’s an extension cord in the corner of the shack in there. Use that. Gag him with something too. Can’t have him hollering for help when he comes to. Gretch, keep an eye on that hidden door. Make sure no one comes charging up to see who opened it.”

“Right.” Tai and Gretchen fist-bumped as went over to the office and retrieved the cord. I rolled my eyes and walked back over to the pallet stack and dragged the second thug over to the office door. I helped Tai bind him, and Tai used one of the blades of the replacement tonfas I’d made for him to cut a sizeable strip of the guy’s shirt off. He stuffed it into the thug’s mouth, careful to make sure he could still breath through his nose, before tying another strip of shirt around his head to make sure he wouldn’t be able to spit the gag out when he woke. After that, we hoisted him into a locker in the corner of the office and shut the door… ‘Arnie’ was a pretty big boy, and it took some doing to make him fit, but eventually we did manage to slam and lock the door with the padlock that’d been in one of the desk drawers.

“Awesome. Come on. Let’s go find us a weapons dealer.”

“Right,” Gretchen replied. She and Tai filed in behind me as I readied my weapon and walked cautiously down the stairs. The downward-angled passageway turned ninety degrees and disappeared about ten feet down. I had no idea how deep it went, or if there were thugs around each corner as we wound down, down, down, at least thirty meters from the surface. I reactivated my semblance and stayed invisible, clearing each bend in the stairwell first as we descended the dimly lit passageway, with Tai and Gretchen close behind. Finally, we reached the bottom of the stairwell. The instant I turned around what seemed to be the last turn, however, I felt my aura drain and my silhouette blinked back into the visible spectrum.

“Crap,” I hissed quietly, pulling back around the corner. Nobody shouted about seeing an intruder or anything, and after a moment I peeked carefully around the edge of the final landing once again. The low-ceilinged, expansive room beyond was chock-full of crates, racks, and of course, guards. There were four Xiong thugs gambling at a table in the corner opposite the bottom of the hidden stairway. We’d have to distract them, or take them out, somehow.

I backed up the stairs a bit, motioning for Tai and Gretchen to move closer so I could keep my tone as low as possible. “Okay. We’ve got four over there,” I murmured, my tone barely above breathing. “They’re playing cards, but two of ‘em are facing this way. We gotta find the shutoff for the aura interrupter they’ve got down here. I don’t feel great about going up against an ex-assassin without my semblance and aura.”

“Yeah, and I felt Quake starting to get _really_ heavy a second ago. Had to back up and bring my aura back up. I guess the interrupter field starts at the bottom of the stairs there.”

“Of course. As if this couldn’t get any more difficult.”

“Sorry. Whole reason I can swing this thing around is because I’ve gotten really good at using my semblance _constantly._ ”

“No, I shoulda guessed this was a possibility. They had cuffs that could block a huntsman’s aura back at the precinct they had us locked up in. Figures they’d have tech that could kill aura through a whole room too. Shoulda had the team that came down here be ones among us that can actually use their weapons without needing their aura.”

“That pretty much narrows it down to Lilith, Raven, Qrow, You, and me,” Tai said, five fingers extending as he listed off the names of our teammates who all wielded weapons more manageable than Quake, Deadlift, or Magnhnefi were.

“Alright. Let’s get the twins down here. Gretch, you head back up, but be ready to bust back down here and help us out if things go south.

“Sure thing. I’ll get Val and Talia to move in, we’ll keep our exit locked down unless we’re needed.”

“We’ll try to get the field down and make sure we get Lilith out of here.” I pulled out my scroll and typed out the quick message to my other two teammates. Moments later, one of Raven’s portals sundered the air a few feet up the stairwell. The strange humming of the rift was a bit louder than I expected it would be. Qrow and Raven stepped through quietly enough, but what I heard next confirmed my worst fear.

“You hear something?” One of the thugs around the corner asked his poker buddies.

“Get _back,_ ” I hissed as Raven’s portal closed. Qrow and Raven were surprised to emerge to the new surrounding and have me immediately start shoving them back, but fortunately they seemed to grasp the reason for my urgency and tiptoed as quickly as they could back up a few steps. I heard two steps of booted feet walking over to the stairwell.

“I think DJ’s homebrew is getting to your brain, man. I didn’t hear a thing.”

“Naw, I’m not even that drunk yet. I swear I heard something, like a… A _whoosh_ or something. Right… _Here_.” Getting four people to back up a narrow flight of stairs without another sound was more difficult than I’d hoped. I knew we wouldn’t make it out of sight in time… In desperation, I grabbed Raven’s wrist with one hand, Tai’s with another, and I leaned hard against Qrow, pinning him to the wall with my back. Gretchen grabbed Tai’s shoulder too, realizing that though she was the furthest up the stairs, she wouldn’t make it far enough out of sight in time either. It took every bit of energy I could muster to extend my semblance to four other people simultaneously, but I grit my teeth and strained to distribute the effects of my invisibility as the thugs to whom the footsteps belonged poked their heads around the corner.

“See, told you it’s nothing. You’re more of a lightweight than I thought, huh?”

“I’m not a lightweight, I just…” The enforcer who was trying to defend his insistence that he’d heard something squinted hard, like he wasn’t convinced there was nothing there.

Please don’t come down here, please don’t come down here, please, oh, please don’t come down here… The enforcer turned away, but I held my sigh of relief until he must’ve been seated back at the poker table. Even then, I was scared to let it out, lest he hear us again. I released my grip on Tai and Raven, and stepped away from the wall to free Qrow from where I’d had him pinned. “Alright,” I whispered, as silently as I possibly could manage. “Gretchen, go on up. You two,” I said, pointing to the Branwen twins as Gretchen moved silently back up the stairs. “There’s no aura from the edge of the wall there on. Lilith got stuck down here. She can’t use her semblance, and neither can we to get her out of there, unless we find a way to shut down the interrupter field.”

“How did I know this wasn’t gonna be that easy,” Qrow grumbled quietly.

“Hey, at least your semblance won’t make it any harder than it already is until we can shut that field down.,” Raven pointed out.

“Yeah, no you’re right there,” Qrow replied, shrugging. “Alright. So, lack of bad luck aside, first thing we gotta do is distract the guys in there so we can get past ‘em. Any ideas?”

I thought about it for a moment. _Lilith._ If she could knock some of the ‘merchandise’ over deeper into the labyrinth of boxes, the thugs at the table might have to get up and go see what the noise was. “I might have an idea,” I murmured, pulling out my scroll.

**We’re in the cache.**

**Can you knock some stuff over somewhere in there?**

**We need a distraction to move further in.**

A few moments later, I heard a crash and a clattering of metal on concrete. All four guards stood up, all rather shakily as they’d been drinking quite heavily throughout their game. “Okay. Don’t even tell me I didn’t hear anything that time,” The sharp-eared thug who’d almost spotted us moments before grumbled.

“No. Sounded like a box of the boss’s merch fell over. Told you that you was stackin’ that last shipment too close to the edge a’ the racks, idiot.”

“Like hell I was. One a’ the other guys probably knocked it over. Let’s go pick that crap up. You know Trigger hates when we drop his guns.

“We’ll stay here,” one of the thugs said, probably speaking for the fourth guy as well.

“Nuh uh. Must think I’m some kinda stupid. I ain’t gonna leave my winnings just sittin’ on a table in front a’ you thievin’ chuckleheads.”

“Fine. Whatever. The third voice growled annoyedly. Seems there really was no honor among thugs, if the enforcers all trusted each other that little.

**That work?**

I saw the text pop up on my scroll. I carefully checked back around the corner again, in time to see the four card-playing clan members heading off into the stash.

**Like a charm :)**

**Hold tight. We’re on our way.**

**Cool.**

**Hiding under an empty crate about midway through the cache.**

Empty crate, huh? That was actually a pretty genius idea. The weapons stash was so disorganized, we’d blend in with all the other crates and boxes stacked haphazardly around, so long as one of the Family goons didn’t actually see us move. Qrow, Tai, Raven and I moved past the stairwell and out into the massive underground stockpile. Conveniently enough, there was a stack of empty crates just big enough for each of us just around the corner where the storage area widened out. I motioned at the wooden boxes, picked one up and pulled it over my head, kneeling down and waving for the three others to do the same.

Raven rolled her eyes. “I’m not getting into a stupid box. That’s—"

“Lemme guess… ‘That’s a terrible idea’? That’s what you say about everything, Raven. Just get in. It’s the only way they won’t see us, just don’t move when they’re looking.” I shot back, careful not to let my voice carry. Before I hunkered down into my disguise, I noticed Qrow creeping over to the poker table. “Qrow!” I hissed. “What in the world are you doing, dummy?”

Qrow waved me off dismissively, checking to make sure the four enforcers weren’t yet on their way back before swiping a tall stack of lien cards from the table and chugging the remaining contents of one of the four booze bottles they’d left.  I saw him shake his head, like he wasn’t expecting how strong the stuff had been, before he mouthed the word ‘Wow’ in our direction and crept back over. “That homebrew is pretty good, actually. Not as strong as what we make back home, but it’s still pretty good. Gotta say, too, it doesn’t burn real bad going down like ours does.”

“Save the alcohol review for when we get out of here, Qrow. Now get in a box.”

“Alright, alright, fine. Don’t get your cloak in a knot.” Qrow grabbed the last crate and knelt, barely able to fit his long-legged frame into the wooden shipping container. I let impromptu camouflage drop the rest of the way too, peering out of the small cutout hand-hold on the side as I duck-walked forward. We must’ve looked ridiculous, four wooden boxes with feet, scooting around through racks of pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, even grenade and rocket launchers that were stacked and all over the place. Hundreds of boxes of ammo were stashed willy-nilly about the space too, along with belts of pulse-rifle rounds, heavy chain-gun shells, and whole cases marked ‘WARNING: HIGH EXPLOSIVES” in big, bold, red letters across the front.

“Nice place Trigger’s got here,” Tai whispered from the box behind me.

“He could supply an army with this stuff,” I heard Qrow add. “Raven, our tribe would be set if we could get our hands on all this.”

“Shut up, Qrow. I can hear them coming back,” Raven hissed. Sure enough, I began to hear the footsteps of the four poker-playing guards once again too. The were only two or three rows of merchandise away, too. We were in a bad spot.

“ _Back, get back_!” I whispered urgently, trying to scurry out of the middle of the aisleway so as not to be so obviously out of place. Scuttling backwards was awkward, but I managed to get about halfway out of the way before I saw one set of booted feet rounding a nearby stack of boxes towards us. I froze, lowering my box so it sat on the ground normally and slowing my breathing as much as I could.

“There, now they ain’t gonna fall over again. My dang back’s killin’ me, there must’ve been like a hundred grenades in that box that fell. Whoever stacked it is lucky none a’ the pins fell out.”

“Your back hurts ‘cause your old, dummy. That crate wasn’t that heavy.”

“No, al that just means I was doin’ all the lifting, and you were just pretending to help— _Uhhf._ ” The lead thug, the one who’d been speaking, had been looking back over his shoulder at his compatriot, not paying attention to where he was walking. His shin hit my box hard. “Ahhhgg… _OoowwwOOOOWW_! What the—Who leaves boxes right in the middle a’ the walkway like this? That friggin’ _hurt_!” The enforcer pulled back and kicked my box hard with frustration. I had to stifle a laugh when he recoiled again. “ _Aghh_ , dammit. My _toe._ ”

“Careful, man, box says ‘Explosives’!”

“Relax. Plastic high-ex, probably. It don’t do nothin’ till you put a detonator in it. I could put a cigarette out on the stuff and nothing would happen. You two pick this box up and stack it on the one behind it, though. Get it outta the middle of the lane here.” I tensed. They were getting ready to lift my box, with _me_ in it… I leaned forward quickly and braced by hands against the front side of the crate, sure to grab up the hem of my cloak too as I did. I got one foot lifted up and planted against the back side just in time. My box lifted off the ground, slowly at first before they got a feel for the weight of the container and hoisted me up and back over Tai’s box. I yanked my other foot up and braced it before they noticed, bridging myself against the inside and praying they didn’t flip it over.

“Man, thing’s friggin’ _heavy._ ”

 _I am not,_ I thought annoyedly, remembering Tai’s jab about whole sleeves of cookies from earlier.

“Quit your whinin’. I got the last box and it musta’ been heavier than that. Set that one down and let’s go back. I gotta finish schooling you idiots in poker.”

“Yeah right. Your luck’ll run out eventually, Carter. I’ll be there to take the pot once it does, too.”

“In your dreams. Come on. Sounds like you’ve got more money for me t’ take.” The four goons moved on through the cache and back to their table. I wondered if he’d notice the stack of cash that Qrow had stolen was missing. My question was answered about fifteen seconds later as I stood and stepped down off of Tai’s box. “WHERE THE HELL IS MY MONEY!!? WHICH ONE OF YOU FILTHY IDIOTS SWIPED THE STACK, HUH??!!”

“Don’t look at me! All four of us went with you, just like you wanted. It was there when we left.”

“Then WHERE’D IT GO?” The enforcer from whom Qrow had stolen the winnings roared.

“I don’t damn know! What the… Whoever took it pulled the rest of my booze, too!”

“No one CARES about your booze. That was like three-thousand lien there! Turn out your pockets, all a’ ya. _NOW._ ”

“Whoa, whoa, put the stupid gun down, moron. We ain’t the only four workin’ in here. Maybe one a’ the guys up top came down and swiped it. Might’ve been that’s who I heard in the stairwell, huh?”

“ _Rrrgh_! You might be right. I swear to the gods if Arnie or Mack stole it I’m gonna _kill ‘em._ Come on.” I heard a small stampede of heavy footsteps as the four thugs churned up the stairs after the ‘thief’. I marveled at how well Qrow’s apparent kleptomania had helped us out, there, before pulling out my scroll and shooting Gretch a text.

**Four coming to ya.**

**Hear them. Thanks, we got this.**

Well, they wouldn’t be a problem anymore. I was about to whisper to the others in the box parade to move out, but I stopped dead as another few sets of booted footsteps started thumping their way from the opposite end of the cache towards where they must’ve just heard all the enraged shouting.

“Hey, where are you morons going?” A voice shouted from the direction of the footsteps. I peered out of my peep hole to size up the new threats. First, I saw four regular thugs. Right behind them were three burlier guys, probably all higher-ranking than your typical average enforcer, judging by their nice suits and augmented-reality sunglasses like the ones the lead goon had been wearing when I’d fought him back at the construction site.

Lastly, however, came a guy who was dressed in a long black trench coat, earpiece, slimmer, silver-framed A.R. shades than what the others wore with what looked like a flip-up rangefinder attached to the left side. There was a high-end, modular-looking sniper rifle slung across his back. In one leather-gloved hand he held a gaudy, nickel-plated pistol with a blade built into the lower frame and extending out past the barrel. I saw him reach behind the tails of his trench coat as he withdrew a second weapon from the small of his back. I figured it was probably a knife or another pistol. I was about to ignore it and let the group pass, but the familiar circular shape of the weapon as the last guy drew it recaptured my attention immediately. The second I realized that I wasn’t seeing things, I threw caution and stealth to the wind. I leapt up, hurling the box off of myself and readying my chain-sword. “ _HEY_. That belongs to me.”

The man I realized must’ve been Vasily Häyhä himself stopped and turned, brief surprise flashing across his face before evening back out into cool, collected composure. His goons all stopped too, turning and fanning out across the cache to trap me in the back-half of the room. Trigger looked back to ensure his guys were in position, before grinning. “Is that so? Funny. I found it in the lost and found up at the police department, kid. Looks like that means it’s mine, now.” His right-handed grip tightened on the bladed pistol as he slipped his finger into the trigger-guard. Over in his left hand, he flicked the trigger of the weapon gripped there one time. The barbed braid of Scourge unspooled rapidly, curling onto the floor. Trigger gave his wrist a casual flick, laughing at the smart, sharp _SNAP_ of the braid. “Your move, little girl,” he taunted, dropping down into a fighter’s stance. I felt rage burning in the back of my neck. This guy was _so_ dead.


	21. Assassin

**Chapter Twenty-One: Assassin**

"Hm. Must be my lucky day," Trigger mused as Raven, Tai, and Qrow threw aside their boxes and readied their weapons beside me. "Guess I'll only be able to charge half-price, since you're all just pups. Still, you're the four that killed Frankie and jacked up half our guys in the commercial district, looks like. Maybe I can use that to charge a little more per head."

"We didn't want to kill anyone. He didn't give us a choice."

"Holovids I saw make it look like he gave you plenty of choice. Take it from a professional killer, you made the right one, girl. Guy was a piece of trash."

Great. Now a murderer for hire was telling me I did the right thing. "What, and you're not?" I shot back.

"No, I'm a professional. Professionals have standards. Be polite, be efficient, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. For your edification, that's how you kids can spot the difference between a gunman and an assassin in the future. Heh, not that it matters, I suppose. Your futures are looking pretty short from where I'm standing."

"You talk a lot for a 'professional'," Tai growled.

"No reason there can't be some civility between a predator and his prey. Even if his prey is a sniveling coward like you," Trigger hissed that last part at Tai.

The comment clearly had the intended effect. Tai bowed up even more and I had to put my arm out to stop him from charging in. "Don't let him get in your head, Tai. That's what he wants."

"Might as well listen to the girl, kid. Jade told me about how you never listened to her, back when she told you to stick with the Family, and look how that turned out. Who knows, maybe you could've protected her from that religious nutjob who ripped the dust off her. When's the funeral, by the way?"

"You shut the _HELL_ up!" Tai roared. This time I couldn't stop him as he surged forward, the tonfas I'd made for him spinning in each hand as he hauled back to beat the snot out of the ex-assassin. Trigger grinned. The grip of the bladed pistol in his right hand rotated back to line up with the barrel, and the blade itself grew even longer. The now meter-long segmented sword flashed forward to neatly parry the strike, and Scourge ripped around, looping and snagging Tai's wrist as Trigger yanked back. Tai was pulled off his feet and tripped by a sweep-kick that sent him sprawling into a stack of crates nearby. The contents of the boxes spilled and rolled all over the floor: a few dozen rocket-propelled grenades for heavy Atlesian KPW Launchers. Those alone were enough to level a city block. We needed this fight to be over quickly or no one would survive the encounter at all this time.

"Keep those other guys busy!" I yelled over to Qrow and Raven. "Tai and I will take Trigger. Remember, you don't have aura here. Don't be reckless!"

"On it!" Qrow replied, extending the replacement for Curse and dodging behind another stack of munitions, out of the line of fire as the seven rank-and-file enforcers turned began shooting at the Branwen twins.

One enforcer kept shooting, only to have his gun ripped from his hands by one of the higher-ranking guys and shoved into his gut. "Don't shoot at the explosives, idiots! You'll blow us all to hell!" _Good_ , I thought. At least these guys aren't trying to die tonight either. I took off toward the assassin who had my teammate squarely in his sights.

Trigger had turned to finish off Tai, but spun as he heard my booted footsteps thudding up behind him. I leapt to the left as Scourge cracked through the air towards me, barely dodging the strike from my own weapon. The barbs sliced by the hem of my cloak. Fortunately, he didn't have a dust cylinder selected, or the proximity alone would've been enough to burn me right through my armor. He was probably well aware that shock or burn dust could set off half the merchandise in the warehouse with a single errant attack too. I kicked off one of the rifle racks that were bolted to the floor nearby, jackknifing my body into a low shoulder roll underneath as Trigger side-armed Scourge from his initial attack back towards me. The follow-up strike lashed the air over my head as I closed the distance to my target, and I drew the blade of my makeshift chain sword.

Trigger's own blade rang out against the heavy steel my weapon's edge. Tai had gotten to his feet to my right and was charging back in, rage in his eyes and blood dripping from his forearm where Scourge had lacerated it. I stabbed upward inside our adversary's reach, slicing Trigger's chin and grabbing the wrist that held his sword, trying to immobilize his free hand. To my chagrin, Trigger only turned his manic grin turned to me, ignoring the tiny wound I'd managed to inflict. To make matters worse, without aura, he was far stronger than I by a level of magnitude I hadn't expected. Keeping Tai busy to his left with Scourge, Trigger pushed downward on my grip, overwhelming my attempt to immobilize his primary weapon with unbelievable strength.

As he bore down and I sank to a knee under the force of his push, the pistol-sword he held above me retracted. The motion caught my eye and I looked confusedly from the weapon to the assassin's expression and back. "Surprise!" Trigger exclaimed with a laugh, as all of a sudden, the wrist I was holding aloft with both hands and every bit of my natural strength rotated down one-hundred and eighty degrees in a manner no normal wrist should be able to do. Synthetic flesh at the joint sheared and tore, exposing a ball joint that whirred and clicked as it spun. A prosthetic, and a powerful one, too. I didn't have time to think about it, as the sword re-extended straight down towards me. I was only barely able to twist my shoulder forward to try and avoid the rapidly telescoping blade segments. All the same, it wasn't enough, and after ripping through my cloak and skating briefly over the armor beneath, the blade bit into the back of my shoulder and drew blood that I could feel running warmly down the back of my arm. It wasn't a deep cut, but it stung, and my gasp of pain drew another vicious laugh from Trigger.

Fortunately, I got a break when Tai got through the onslaught of braid and barb to Trigger's left, closing to well inside Scourge's most effective range. He had a few new cuts to show for it across his face and other arm, but he'd kept pushing, the desperation and anger in his eyes making it clear he'd perceived how bad my position was. Trigger could no longer bear down on me because he needed to be able to parry and block my teammate's enraged fury of baton and blade strikes. He ripped his robotic arm from my grasp and elbowed me across the face to buy time to fend off Tai. The hit sent an explosion of stars through my vision, but I sunk mental claws into my consciousness and leapt to my feet, swaying as I did. We had to keep him off-balance. I threw a loop of chain around Trigger's neck, faster probably than he'd been expecting, but not fast enough to stop him from bringing the mechanical arm inside the loop to stop it from ending up a threatening chokehold. He grabbed the chain and simultaneously blocked a high strike from one of Tai's tonfa with his sword, yanking me over his shoulder and into my teammate in the same motion as I ran out of chain in my bracer.

This guy was good. I wasn't sure if we could beat him. Tai and I pulled ourselves off the floor and scrambled to the left and right as Scourge again snapped down towards us. Gunshots rang out as Trigger retracted his blade and leveled the heavy pistol-barrel towards me in my retreat. In the underground stockpile, the sound of the nickel-plated hand cannon was utterly deafening. The concussion wave around each magnum round he fired reverberated off the concrete floor and ceiling, shaking my skull. I could feel the immense report in my teeth from this range. I slid behind a stack of boxes as the volley of gunfire followed me around to the assassin's right. The final round of his ten-shot magazine blasted the corner off of a crate of ammunition and sent splinters into the arm I'd raised to deflect them.

I chanced a look back towards Raven and Qrow, knowing I had a few seconds while Trigger repositioned himself to avoid shooting at me through the boxes of volatile munitions. Raven was parrying one of the higher-ranking thugs as he attacked with a cleaver-like machete, the purple gravity-dust blade she was using sending stinging vibrations of energy down the enforcer's weapon and into his hand every time it clashed with the heavy tapanga. The man gritted his teeth and growled against the undoubtedly painful sensation again and again, ignoring and powering through the repeated waves of gravitational energy. He got an opportunity to go on the offensive as Raven stepped around a box on the ground, heaving back for a powerful downward swing. Raven raised her blade to block it, but the massive thug's downward strike slammed down hard and shattered the gravity blade, releasing a small blast not unlike a miniature version of the shockwave Quake could release. Raven only barely managed to twist out of the arc of that swing, but before she could eject the broken nub of that sword and retrieve another from her sheath, the enforcer grabbed her by the throat and choke-slammed her into a heavy crate marked 'Mortar Tubes, 90mm' behind her. Qrow whirled at the sound of his sister's pained gasp, but he was too far away to do anything about it at that moment. He himself was stuck battling three of the other thugs simultaneously.

Trigger had turned his attention off of me and now had Tai backed into a corner between two high stacks of boxes and the wall. My teammate was only barely holding off the relentless attack from the cybernetic assassin, but he looked like he could last a bit longer. Raven was in more imminent danger, but Tai was a better teammate fighting a more skilled enemy. I had to pick one. I took a step towards Tai… But something stopped me. A tingle in the back of my neck. A guiding sense that someone else needed my help more. Raven. Subconsciously I realized that my personal feelings didn't matter.

Without another thought I propelled myself in a leap across the aisle of boxes and into the towering thug that had been one swing from murdering Raven. The man was twice my size, but my shoulder dropped and I slammed into him so hard he was sent sprawling, coughing as I drove the wind out of his lungs and releasing his hold on Raven. I heard the satisfying snap of ribs as the man's weight worked against him and his side slammed awkwardly into the lip of an open crate on the floor. I pulled Raven to her feet as she retched and her throat recovered from the man's crushing grip. She glared at me, as if to say that she'd had the situation under control, but then her expression softened slightly as something distracted her. I noticed then a crimson crackle of energy flow from her body, mingling where my hand gripped her wrist with the white shimmering flicker of my own aura. I let go of her and looked at my forearms as the rippling wave of power washed down my wrists and through my fingers.

Our auras were back.

"Heads up! Cavalry's here!" I heard someone shout from the direction of the stairwell. Natalia's voice. A beam of freezing energy zipped in from out of my line of sight and caught the thug whose ribs I'd broken as he tried to stand, blasting him back across the floor. His torso was instantly encased in ice, and he flopped over like a sack of bricks, groaning as he lay like a turtle stuck on its back. A moment later, a gravity wave surged along the floor towards us, flinging boxes out of the way and sending weapons and explosives flying. Gretchen and Quake. I leapt over the blast of energy as my friend deflected a volley of shots from two of the remaining low-level thugs and charged in. Right beside her, Val surged through the newly-cleared floorspace towards Trigger and my teammate. Trigger broke his standoff with Tai, raising his prosthetic to block Magnhnefi's shatteringly-powerful right cross. Metal slammed into metal, and the assassin winced as the shock of the impact jarred him back.

"Oh, you've got a robo-arm too, huh? Guess what, mine's _BIGGER_!" Val's jeer turned into a roar as the steel fingers of his gauntlet clamped down like a massive vice grip on the assassin's forearm. I heard a sound like someone crushing a can of 'People Like Grapes' soda. Trigger growled in pain and attempted to lash at Val with the free arm that still clutched Scourge, but before he could Val heaved his weight and aura into a pivot that slung Vasily across the room and into the shattered mess of guns and boxes that used to be his prized cache. I saw Scourge fly from Trigger's grip and clatter to the floor across the room. Lastly, an arrow zipped past my ear from behind. The shaft sped by and pinned the last enforcer who'd been fighting Qrow to the wall, right through the guy's hand. The thug screeched in pain, and Qrow knocked him out cold with his replacement glaive's extended haft. Lilith phased out of the opposite wall behind me as I looked to see where the arrow had come from, shooting Qrow a nod of acknowledgement as he waved his thanks.

"Found the controls to the interrupter," Lilith said with a grin, kicking a thug who'd begun to regain consciousness in the head and back out cold and stepping over his body. "All those guys at the back of the room got up to see what the commotion was and left the vault at the back wide open."

"Thanks. I think we'd have been in a lot of trouble without you guys," I said, nodding. "Everyone alright?" I called out to my team. Qrow shot me a 'thumbs up', Raven nodded grudgingly, and Tai grinned. Now all we had to do was…

"You'll regret this, you damn kids!" Trigger shouted as he picked himself off the ground with his mangled prosthetic. I noticed then that Val had ripped the robotic hand straight off the sparking stump at the end of Vasily's crumpled wrist as he heaved the assassin across the room. He made a break for the passageway that led up to the warehouse.

"Get him!" Tai shouted. "He knows something about who killed Jade!"

"Lilith, get me up there," I said, turning to Gretchen's teammate. Lilith nodded, taking hold of my wrist as she stepped back and melded into the wall. It was the weirdest sensation, for me. Everything went dark as I walked into the concrete behind her, like it wasn't even there. After that, I felt myself rising like an ice-cube in water, up, up, up and into the cool early morning air outside the warehouse. "I got front door, you get back," I said to Lilith as we phased out of the ground, turning and breaking into a sprint without waiting for a response to get to the waterfront side of the warehouse before Trigger escaped. I rounded the corner outside warehouse 429 just as the door burst open and the assassin sprinted for the waterfront. He saw me, and his brief surprise at my appearance so suddenly on the surface morphed to annoyance and anger as he fired back towards me with his pistol. The thunderous _BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM_ of the weapon echoed in the still night of early-morning Vale. I had to break stride to dodge, knowing a few high-caliber slugs like those could still overwhelm my aura if I took too many. One clipped my injured shoulder and glanced off, but the jarring impact was enough to reopen the gash that the protective field of spiritual energy had just begun to help knit together. I felt the flow of blood anew and heard the sound of gunshots become a muted _click-click-click_ as Trigger desperately emptied the full magazine to shake my pursuit. His weapon empty, he growled and holstered the weapon as he continued his dash.

I heard Gretchen grunt with effort behind me and turned in time to see her slam Quake into the ground the second she emerged from the warehouse. Concrete at the point of impact shattered, and another wave of deep purple gravitational energy surged across the ground, catching up with Trigger as the assassin reached the edge of the wharfs. His dive into the dank, cold water below became an uncoordinated belly flop, but he didn't re-emerge from the waves. He must've had a diving gill with him. I stopped at the wharf's edge, looking down at the dark surface of the water where Trigger had disappeared as Tai and Gretchen ran up beside me. I looked at my teammate amusedly.

"You first, blondie."

"Not funny. I can't believe that weasel got away," he grumbled back.

"We'll track him down eventually. In the meantime, shoot your dad a text, let him know he and Lennie can swing by with some of the good cops and pick up the thugs we did catch. Gretchen, are the others watching the enforcers downstairs? I'd hate to have to beat 'em all down again." GLDN's team leader nodded, but Tai shook his head.

"He can't come down here. Not without a reason from dispatch. If he goes off with a S.W.A.T. squad without a reason and comes back to the precinct with a dozen known thugs in custody, whoever picked up the bad half of the PD's leash after Frankie died is gonna realize he's working with us."

I thought about the problem for a moment. My teammate had a point, but we couldn't just let all these enforcers go. "Hmm… Aha! Shoot him that text anyway. I've got an idea." I pulled out my own scroll and pulled up the 'call' feature. "What's the civilian emergency line in Vale? It's different in every kingdom I've been to."

"Hashtag nine-nine-nine," Gretchen answered.

"It's called a pound sign, Gretch," I joked, dialing the number.

"Whatever," she said with a grin.

The line rang once before a female operator, the same voice I'd heard calling the shots from Dispatch during the police chase a few days prior, answered on the other end. "Vale Emergency Response. What is the nature of your emergency?"

I did my best to imitate a 'scared civilian' voice, stuttering and trembling as I spoke to add to the effect. "I h-heard like… A lot of gunshots down b-by the warehouse I work for! At… At least, I think it was gunshots, I've never actually heard a gunshot before except in movies my boyfriend likes and—"

"What is your location, ma'am? I'll send units to check it out and secure the area."

"I'm… I work in the northside wharfs… Warehouse… er—" I looked around. "Warehouse four-two-five. For the…" I squinted my eyes at the logo on the warehouse. It took me a second to see the faded snowflake on the door. "For the Schnee Dust Company. I'm a warehouse manager. Working nightshift. Please hurry!"

"Can you give me a general location you heard the shots from?"

"I… I dunno. Like, maybe three or four warehouses down from me, towards the end of the row. I think that's… Warehouse four-two-nine? Four-two-eight? That area."

"Okay ma'am. I'm sending units your way now." I heard radio chatter in the background of the call on the dispatcher's end. As I did, Tai showed me the response to his text from Kent:

**Just got dispatched. Thanks kids, we'll pick 'em up.**

"Thank you so much!" I replied to the dispatcher lady before hanging up. Tai and Gretchen just looked at me with amused wonderment on their faces.

"Hey, if we get busted for this and kicked out of Beacon, at least you have a future in acting, Summer," Gretchen said with a grin. "Here, I scooped it off the ground where it fell down there on the way up." Gretchen retrieved Scourge from her forearm, having hurriedly hung the ring on her wrist as she'd given chase.

"Thanks, Gretch. Let's head back down there. We got a few minutes before the police get here. Maybe there'll be something useful."

"Oooohhh… Like shotguns!" Tai said with a grin before tearing off towards the warehouse again.

"Those boys love shotguns," I said, rolling my eyes. "Come on, Gretch." Gretchen followed me down to the bottom of the stairs and back into the trashed weapons cache. Every thug we'd caught was frozen together back-to-back in the middle of the floor, probably Talia's doing, and the ones that could see in Tai's direction were glaring as he zipped from box to box, breaking them open and looking at what was inside like a kid at Christmas. I made straight for the vault at the back… If Trigger had Scourge, he might've also had Thorn. I wasn't disappointed as I rounded the last stack of boxes and saw the immense plated vault door at the back. It was open, and the weapon racks within were arrayed around an expensive-looking mahogany desk. Trigger's personal collection. I saw it immediately, in a display rack to the left of his high-backed leather chair. Thorn, extended and hung like a trophy, right next to Curse, and Tai's original tonfa. Various other high-end weapons hung all around the space.

Gold-plated KPW launchers, experimental Atlesian pulse rifles, and… "Hey Tai! Qrow! Get in here!" I called.

After a moment, the boys appeared around the vault door. I nodded over at their weapons on the wall, stepping over and retrieving Thorn myself. I retracted the blade and replaced it against my gauntlet, its familiar weight on my forearm was immediately comforting, and for the first time in days the sense of foreboding at the thought of my weapons being lost forever was lifted from the back of my mind. I breathed a long sigh of relief, then turned to Tai, who was looking from his old tonfas to the ones I'd made for him and back.

"Those have sentimental value, don't they?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, they did. And they have shotguns. But…" Tai looked at the heavier steel versions I'd crafted. "These are just… Better. For… For a bunch of reasons," He added, holding out is hand before I said anything snide about it being because I'd made them. "It's not just 'cause you put 'em together for me. I mean, that's part of it. Okay, a lot of it, but that's not the only reason!" I laughed.

"Don't gotta explain to me. Whichever ones you want, I won't hate. Heck, take 'em anyway. Keepsakes, right? Besides, if you want shotguns…" I pointed behind Tai to the weapon rack left of the desk, and my teammate turned. Qrow turned too.

"Dibs." Qrow said, before Tai could speak.

"Oh, 'Dibs' my butt. You've got your own weapon back. You don't need 'em."

"Yes I do. Summer could always bolt 'em to Curse. The more shotguns, the merrier, right?"

"Were you gonna, oh I dunno, maybe _ask_ if Summer would bolt more guns to your scythe, Qrow?" I asked.

"Oh, you would. You practically live in that armory."

"Fair point," I replied.

Tai continued his retort. "Dude. Those are Misriah M45D's. SDC eight-gauge supermagnum. They'd break your skinny little arms with one shot."

"They would _not_ ," Qrow shot back annoyedly.

"You two could rock-paper-scissors for them," I said.

"Or arm-wrestle," Tai suggested.

"Guys!" Lilith interrupted, dropping in from the ceiling. "We don't have time! The cops are here already. Two-dozen S.W.A.T. guys, K-9 units… We probably shouldn't be down here when they show up down here, straight cops or not."

"Alright everyone, everyone grab hold of Lilith," I said. Qrow got a weird look in his eye, perhaps a little too excited and nervous at the prospect of holding hands with his crush. "Down boy," I murmured to him under my breath, shooting him a knowing sideways glance.

"It's not that simple, Summer," Lilith replied, holding up her hand. "I can't get that many people to the surface in one trip. Cops will be down here in the next thirty seconds. We don't have time to go one by one, and I might get too worn out to phase after four or five of you. We gotta find another way."

"But there isn't another… Way… Wait a second." I remembered the biometric access panel hidden beneath the desk up in the manager's shack in the warehouse above. Kneeling down, I felt around underneath Trigger's desk. The first thing my hand bumped into was another nickel-plated pistol in a holster attached to the underside of the rich, lacquered surface. I drew it to check it out. his one didn't have a blade, and wasn't gaudily etched like the sword-gun that the assassin had wounded me with. Just a plain, polished silvery finish that matched the rings on Scourge and Thorn. It was actually… Really, really nice. The weight of it, the balance... I laid it on the table after admiring it for a split second and went back to feeling beneath the desk. Right beside the holster, I found what felt like a hidden latch. I gave it a click, and was rewarded when a sliding panel dropped down and extended beyond the desk. It was another biometric access scanner. "Can anyone hack this?"

The eight of us looked from one to another. Nobody volunteered. That was, until Val looked like he realized something. "Wait a minute. I… I still have this." From the pocket of his long black jacket, Val produced a hand. But not just any hand… Trigger's prosthetic, the one he'd ripped from the assassin's wrist after charging in to get Vasily off of Tai.

"Wow. Nice," Tai said. "Y'know, I'd say we all ought to give him a hand, but… It looks like he's already got one." I saw Val trying to hold back a laugh in spite of himself, and the vault filled with a chorus of annoyed grumbles as the other six of us voiced our opinions of Tai's jokes. Death threats and expressions of hatred aside, I looked over at Val.

"Why do you still have that?" Gretch muttered through her hand, which was pressed against her face to hide the grin she was trying not to let show.

"Oh, you know. Figured it might… Come in handy." This time it was Val with the bad wordplay. Another round of groans rippled through the group and Val sighed his own annoyance. "Dammit, Tai. You've infected me."

"Hey man, now you know how I feel. Sometimes you've just got the perfect joke, and the timing is spot on, and you just gotta let it out."

"Except, you never have the perfect joke. _OR_ the perfect timing."

" _OR_ you just don't appreciate true humor."

"Alright. Alright. We can argue about comedy later. Is everyone in here? Let's give this a try." I took the hand from Val, laying it on the terminal. The red light on the side blinked once, twice, then flashed green. Suddenly, the vault door hissed closed and the locking bars rammed into place with a resounding _CLANK._ The rack behind Vasily's desk whirred as it swung inward, revealing a secret chamber. Just inside, a heavy, rusty door on the far concrete wall caused Tai, Qrow, Raven and I to groan. It was just like the sewer access we'd used to escape the police chase.

"What?" Gretchen asked. "Come on, let's- Wait. Is that…"

"The sewers. Why does it always have to be the sewers?" I replied.

"We don't have time to whine about it," Raven grumbled, drawing that metal-melting blue blade that seemed to come in handy pretty often on these unsanctioned missions of ours. "They'll have heard that door close, and if they didn't bring breaching charges, I can guarantee there's plenty of them in the stockpile for them to 'borrow'."

Tai grabbed his old tonfa, retracting them and placing them against the mag-plates on his pant legs. He held the two I'd made him in one hand, and slung the pair of shotguns on his opposite shoulder. Qrow eyed him suspiciously, as if worried Tai would make off with the powerful weapons like a bandit. Tai ignored him, turning to me. "You should take that pistol. That's a…"

"Khandor M-6 fourty-four 'cal supermagnum. Atlesian mil-spec semi-auto. I know."

"It's nice. Could give you a bit more reach when you need it. Put the right ammo in it and you could probably smoke a beo through the skull plate with one shot. Plus, I mean… _Look_ at it."

I sighed. "Well, when you put it that way…" I scooped the pistol up, and Tai grinned. "Come on. Let's get out of here before they blow the door with us in here."

Val and Talia pulled the false weapon rack back into place as Raven cut the bolts on the locked sewer door. It creaked open, and the small, dark room we were in was flooded with the unpleasantly familiar rancidness of the Vale sanitation system. Gretchen and Lilith gagged, but didn't dare open their mouths to complain, instead pulling their shirts up over their noses as Raven once again lit the way for us through the septic line. Several sewer-stench filled minutes later, the eight of us emerged where the line dumped into the Shallow Sea, out into the early morning just as the sky to the east had begun to shift from black to blue.

"Oh my gods. _Air_ ," Gretchen groaned with relief.

"Hm. Consider that your initiation to our little crimefighting ring, guys," Tai said with a smile.

Gretchen just looked at him with a queasy scowl. "If that becomes the norm, I'm out," she replied.

Qrow cleared his throat at Tai. "Now. You and I have a rock-paper-scissors duel to attend to, blondie. I need me some new shotguns."

"Bring it on. Best out of three." Tai handed me the tonfa I'd made for him and pounded his fist into his hand, assuming a stance like he was about to tackle an ursa. "Call it, Summer."

I shook my head. "Alright. On shoot. Gentlemen—and I use that term very loosely—to your marks." Qrow placed his fist in his palm, staring Tai down like he were trying to read his mind. I held up my hand, then dropped it, like I were officiating the start of a race.

In unison, the boys chanted, "Rock, Paper, Scissors, _SHOOT._ "

"Haha! Paper beats rock, bud," Qrow taunted.

"It shouldn't. Rocks can rip through paper. Whatever, let's go. Quit stalling."

Again, the simultaneous "Rock, Paper, Scissors, _SHOOT._ "

" _Dammit!_ " Qrow grumbled, curling is index finger from his unsuccessful 'scissors' gambit while leaving the middle finger up and aimed at Tai's clenched fist.

"Last one. No pressure, man," Tai said calmly.

"You're trying to get into my head."

"Me? Nahh. Ready?"

Qrow psyched himself up. He _really_ wanted those shotguns. "Rock, Paper, Scissors, _SHOOT_! _"_ They both threw paper. "Rock, Paper, Scissors, _SHOOT_!" They both threw rock. "Rock, Paper, Scissors, _SHOOT_!" Qrow started to throw scissors, but Tai was keeping his fist clenched. In a desperate bid, Qrow's ring and pinky fingers extended to try and switch to 'paper' before anyone noticed, but it was obviously late. Tai grinned, bashing our black-haired teammate's two fingers with his 'rock' to emphasize his victory.

"Looks like I got me some new shotguns!" Tai said, grinning. "Don't worry, Qrow. I'll put 'em to good use."

"I hate you." Qrow growled.

"Don't be a sore loser, baby brother," Raven murmured, clearly amused to watch her twin lose in a luck-based game. Apparently, his semblance didn't work _all_ the time.

"No one asked you, Raven." Qrow shot back.

"Guys, guys. Save the arguing for later. Let's catch a cab back to school. It's bedtime," I said.

"Mmmm. Let's see if we've earned it," Gretchen replied, grinning. "All-night stakeout of criminal weapons stockpile?"

"Check," Lilith responded.

"Successful stealth infiltration of said stockpile?"

"Check… Well, sort of," Tai said with a shrug.

"Could've gone smoother, right, we'll ignore that one. Apprehension of a big cell of known Syndicate thugs?"

I shot her a 'thumbs-up'. "A full dozen. And don't forget the one I convinced to quit his evil ways." Tai and Gretchen laughed.

"Bonus objective, we got our weapons back," Qrow added.

"Yeah, there is that." Tai acknowledged. "We still didn't catch Trigger though. And we haven't seen the last of him either, if his rep holds true."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We know he knows something," I said conciliatorily. "Meanwhile, maybe some of us can go with Tai to search Jade's place for a journal. Once we have it, we might not need whatever he could've told us anyway. How's that then, Gretch? Think we've earned a full day to ignore homework and sleep till the sun goes down?"

"Ohhh yeah. Ab-so-loutely. All in favor?"

"What is this? A committee?" Raven grumbled. "You're all ridiculous. Let's just go already. Who's got taxi money?" She already knew the answer to the question, turning her head to stare straight at Qrow as she asked. I remembered then the cash he'd stolen from the gambling thugs back in the stockpile. He'd have plenty of extra money on him.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm broke," her brother lied.

"Cough it up, Qrow," Raven growled.

"Uggh. _Fine._ What I don't give up for this team." Qrow withdrew a hundred-lien card and dialed up a cab. As he did, Tai's own scroll buzzed. He showed me the text after he read it.

**Bang-up job, Tai. You guys made a heck of a mess, but we've got enough on these boys to put 'em away for a long, long time. And don't worry, I'll make sure only the REAL good guys handle the lockup.**

Tai tapped back a quick answer.

**Thanks, Kent. We'll be in touch if we make another move.**

Kent's response popped up a moment later, and before Tai could hide his scroll from me I read probably the most embarrassing thing I'd ever seen.

**Yeah, please do. Keep this up and the streets will be clean before you know it.**

**Oh, and bud… Hurry up and tell that Summer girl how you really feel. I'm sick of you coming to me with your girl problems.**

"I… Ahhhh…" Tai's eyes widened and he jammed his scroll into his pocket. "You didn't… You didn't read all that, did you?"

"Hm? No, what gives?" I lied. "Why'd you put the scroll up? He was just congratulating us." Tai's expression flushed with relief, but I shot him a knowing grin that caused his ears to turn red all over again before I turned and head off with the rest of the group to the opposite side of the industrial district where we'd emerged.

 


	22. Face-to-Face

**Chapter 22:  Face-to-Face**

“I can’t believe you all conned me into paying for two airtaxis,” Qrow grumbled after handing the drivers their fare and turning back to the rest of our group on the landing pads.

“Well, we could’ve taken one, but that means you would’ve had to sit on Raven’s lap,” I replied evenly.

Raven’s normal dispassionate expression became a dry look that she cast sardonically back at me. “ _No one_ would’ve been sitting on my lap. And quit your whining, Qrow,” she snapped, turning to her brother. “You’ve still got, what, twenty-nine hundred lien and change left? Seriously. You’re the only person I know who’d complain after a big score like that.”

“No—well, yeah, it’s just… _Aghh_. Fine.” Qrow shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked on past us towards the dorms.

“Twenty-nine hundred? You’ve got enough for a car, Qrow.” I said as the group continued down the thoroughfare behind him. “Kinda a crappy one, but I’m sure you could find some wheels if you’re not too picky.”

“And they have student parking here at the school,” Tai added. “It’s where I keep my bike.”

“Don’t give him ideas. We’ve already seen how bad a driver he is,” Raven grumbled.

“Well, I would’ve been better if _someone_ hadn’t been backseat driving that entire time we were running from the cops,” Qrow shot back. “Y’know what? I think I might actually get a car now. Just despite you, sis. And you can’t ride in it.”

“ _Pfft_. Like I’d want to ride in any old clunker you could afford. Besides, I could literally just portal over to wherever you go.”

Qrow put his finger up like he was about to fire off a snappy retort, but stalled when he realized Raven had a point. “I… Dang it. Whatever.”

“Probably would save all of us from having to ride with Lennie or get a taxi every time we go out in town for one of these raids. Making this a regular thing? Y’know, showing up on the landing pads first thing in the morning after a night of taking it to the Family? That’s bound to raise some eyebrows sooner or later,” Tai said. “I might be convinced to pitch in a little. It could only help.”

“Oh wait!” Gretchen exclaimed. “What if we all put some money down and got like a van or big SUV or something? Like the Mystery Mobile in Rooby Doo?”

“In _what_?” Raven asked, a note of confused annoyance in her tone.

“Old Saturday morning kids show on CCWB, about a bunch of teenagers solving mysteries. They had a van they all rode around in, like one of those old hippie road trip vans,” Gretchen explained. “We’re kinda like them, only…”

“Only armed. And without a talking dog. And we don’t take masks off of guys pretending to be ghosts.” I finished. “So, we’re really nothing like them.”

“Eh, details,” Gretchen replied with a dismissive wave.

“That show sounds so stupid,” Raven grumbled.

“There was a talking dog?” Qrow asked, apparently not as bothered by the idea of the childish old cartoon as his sister.

“Yeah, I dunno, Gretch,” I said. “Having a mystery mobile of our own isn’t really that great for keeping a low profile, y’know?”

“Okay, so we could skip the crazy colors. Don’t lie though, that show was your childhood. Right? Am I right? Hands up, who _didn’t_ watch it growing up?” Val, Tai and Talia and Lilith all put their hands up. “See?”

“I was more of a ‘Dragon Sphere X’ kind of kid, though,” Val interjected.

“Okay, fine. Yeah, I got it in a few of the places we lived.” I admitted. “I wouldn’t say it was my whole childhood though, most of the time we couldn’t ever get a decent CCNet signal.”

“I pity the life you wasted,” Gretchen laughed.

I shrugged. “Again, not my fault.” As soon as I said that, I couldn’t help but remember that I now actually had been told whose fault it was. Those people with the taijitu-emblems, the ones my dad was hunting down right now, had taken a lot from my family. The wistful look that erased my grin as I wondered what a ‘normal’ childhood would’ve been like was enough to let Gretchen know that we could continue the ‘Mystery Mobile’ discussion at a later time.

“Speaking of keeping a low profile, Summer,” Gretchen added after a decidedly awkward second, “You should probably lose the cloak for now. That stain’s really noticeable. No way somebody won’t say something about it.”

“Yeah, no you’re probably right, Gretch,” I agreed as clicked open the ‘burning rose’ emblem and undid the clasps beneath.

“Maybe you should try red. Xiong thugs wouldn’t be able to see it if you’re bleeding,” Val said as he and Talia brought up the rear of our group.

“Nah. Red’s not really my color.” I got the cloak off and inspected the rip and stain more closely. “Man. Blood’s hard to get out, too. Anyone buy any vinegar?”

“Vinegar? What for?” Gretchen asked.

“Used to use it to get blood out of my Dad’s cloak whenever he’d come back from missions.”

“There should be some in the kitchenette,” Lilith replied.

“Thanks.”

Gretchen raised a questioning eyebrow yet again. “You and your dad both wear cloaks?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s kinda our thing, I guess. His is black though. Think I started wearing one back when we were living with that nomadic tribe when I was like, I dunno, four or five maybe. My aunt Kyrin made it for me… Pretty sure it was just a bedsheet she cut down to my size, but I loved running around looking like my dad and I’ve worn one ever since.”

“That’s adorable,” Gretchen said, smiling.

“Yeah, real precious,” I heard Raven mumble under her breath. Gretchen and I ignored her as my friend continued.

“Does his… Y’know, do rose petals go everywhere whenever he uses his semblance? Like they do whenever you go invisible?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s weird, but I guess that’s just a thing that happens for us Roses. My dad said semblances, or traits like the petals thing, can be passed down. He’s got a friend up in Atlas that we stayed with for a while who’s got the same semblance as his father. His daughter Willow is my age and was learning how to do it too. Super cool summoning trick he showed us one time.”

“Summoning? Like what?”

“Grimm. But, like, ones he’s killed on his adventures. They fight for him.”

“Oh, great.” Tai sighed. “ _Another_ semblance that sounds waayyy cooler than mine.”

“I…” I thought about it for a second, before shrugging. “Yeah, no I don’t really have anything to make you feel better about that one, bud. You’re kinda spot on.”

“Man, the semblance-envy is strong with this one,” Val taunted. “What’s the matter, bud, your glowwy jazz-hands not cool enough anymore?”

“Better shuddup before gonna you get these ‘jazz-hands’, Val. I’ll make sure you can’t move until lunchtime.”

“What’s your dad’s semblance?” Gretchen asked, interrupting the boy’s testosterone battle before it got out of hand.

“Probably another super-cool one.” Tai grumbled under his breath before I could answer.

“He can step between shadows. Like, one second, he’s in one shadow then the next he’s ten meters away stepping out from behind a tree. Made it super-hard to spar with him before I got my semblance. Almost everywhere you go, something casts a shadow. Means he’s always got a way around you in a fight.”

“I bet. Sounds like he could just pop up anywhere. Kinda like you can,” Gretchen said.

“Yeah, his is faster, though. I still have to move normally while I’m invisible, he can just… Well, teleport, basically. I don’t think I ever beat him back when he was training me. Speaking of that, though, I never did ask you how you could see me when we sparred the other day, Gretch,” I said, suddenly reminded of the beating my friend had laid down on me in front of the whole class.

“Oh, yeah. I did say I’d tell you, didn’t I? It’s easy. You know how I can feel gravity flowing through and around me, right? I can feel it flowing through you, too, if I concentrate. I can’t manipulate yours unless we touch, but if I can get a fix on it then I don’t even need to actually see you the rest of the fight. Best way I can describe it is like being on a trampoline with someone else. You can close your eyes and feel where they are around you because of how their weight interacts with the ground.”

“Never had a trampoline as a kid,” I admitted. Yet another ‘normal childhood’ thing I’d missed out on, it seemed. I’ll add it to the list.

Gretchen looked a little surprised. “ _Whaaaa…?_ Man. They’re fun. Dunno how many times I landed on my head falling off of ours when I was young, but I’d always just get right back on. I loved the how weightless it’d make me feel.”

“Landed on your head a lot, huh?” I said. “Explains a lot about you, actually.”

“Hey!”

I grinned, and Gretchen shoved me playfully, accidentally pushing off on my injured shoulder. “ _Oww_!” I hissed, tenderly holding the wound to make sure it didn’t reopen and start bleeding yet again.

“Ahhh crap. _Sorry_ ,” Gretchen apologized, suddenly realizing where she’d pushed me.

“It’s fine. I think I’m mostly healed back up.” That was a lie. The shove really had hurt, but I didn’t want her to feel bad. “Well, that answers a lot then. You can feel me through the ground when I’m invisible. I’ll keep that in mind for round two.”

“Gonna end the same way, Sum.”

“Oh whatever. Got my real weapons back and I know all your tricks now.”

Gretchen grinned. “That’s what _you_ think.”

“Hey, so, when are we going to check Jade’s place for a journal?” Tai asked from the rear of our group.

“The Syndicate will be on their toes after tonight, Tai. It’s too dangerous to head out in town just yet. Wait a few days, then we’ll go one of these nights. Shouldn’t take too long.” Tai didn’t seem to like that answer all that much, but nodded. I knew he wanted to get more answers soon, especially since we’d failed to get anything from Trigger. But we’d just stirred the hornet’s nest again in a big way. Every monitor and goon would have their eyes peeled for us the second word got out of what had gone down at the wharfs.

I didn’t want to think about going back out into town just yet, anyway. All I wanted was for the rest of the walk back to the dorms to go uneventfully. Some upperclassmen students out for an early morning jog shot weird looks at us as they passed, especially at Tai with the two shotguns slung over his shoulders and two sets of tonfas crowding his mag-plates. Eight fully-armed students walking around campus wouldn’t’ve been that out of place any other day, but it was early Sunday morning, and we were coming from the direction of the landing pads. The last thing we needed was to run into anybody who’d actually ask questions, like the T.A.’s or professors, and certainly least of all Doctor Hargrave. I’d always heard the old man was an early bird too, and it’d been made clear enough that he had it in for me and my team. “Hey guys, let’s take the long way around to the dorms, actually,” I said as we came to a four-way intersection on the thoroughfare before we reached the main courtyard. Probably not a good idea to head right through the middle of campus. Never know who might start asking awkward questions.”

“Good point,” Gretchen replied. “We probably ought to split up, too. We’ll swing around building four and go in the backside of our dorm.”

“Okay. We’ll—”

“I’m just going straight back to the room,” Raven interjected. “This isn’t one of those ‘Impossible Mission’ movies.”

I shook my head. “Alright, fine. You do you, Raven.”

“Come on, Qrow,” Raven called to her brother.

“Psh. Nah, I’m gonna go get breakfast. I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry,” I said. “You’re gonna end up like Tater, eating like you do.”

“A fat Qrow is a happy Qrow,” my teammate replied with a grin, breaking off from the group to continue straight to the dining hall. Raven huffed annoyedly before stalking off after him. Gretchen, Tai and I shared a look before breaking off to go our varied routes back to the suite.

Thankfully, with the exception of a few sideways glances from the odd early-riser, no one even noticed Tai and I all the way to the stairwell door of building three. Upon reaching our suite, I went straight to the kitchenette to rummage for vinegar, and upon finding it, took my cloak back to our bathroom and filled a sink with cold water and the whole bottle of the sour-smelling liquid. The clear mix tinged with red the second the stained part of my cloak submerged beneath the surface, and I let it soak as I gingerly removed my chestplate, corset, and combat skirt. Turning to get a better look at the cut in the mirror, I gently touched the wound to see how well it’d healed. It still stung a bit, but my aura had helped the cut knit itself most of the way back together by this point. As yet, it was hard to tell if it was deep enough to leave a scar. And here was still a lot of blood still staining by arm and back, but it was nothing a good long shower couldn’t handle.

“That looks a lot worse than you made it sound,” Gretchen said as she walked in and saw the wound clearly for the first time.

“Yeah, I know. Didn’t want the guys to worry. My dad would say that it’s just part of the job. I can’t even count how many cuts and gashes he’s come home with that I’ve helped him stitch up after his missions. Always knew I’d end up with a few scars of my own eventually.” I looked down at the ridge of scar tissue spanning my palm as I said that.

“Yeah, I guess you have a point. I’m sure I’ll have some to show for it sooner than later too. Just… Try not to get so many of ‘em, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure thing.” I knew that wasn’t really a promise I could make, but my friend relaxed and I carried on getting ready for a long day of sleep, slapping a bandage on the cut after getting out of the shower and throwing my pajamas on like I were on autopilot. I pushed open the door to the room, noticing then that I still had it to myself. Raven and Qrow were probably still at breakfast, and Tai hadn’t returned yet, either. I supposed he was probably taking an even longer shower than I had and didn’t give his absence another thought as I carelessly tossed my weapons, clothes, armor and boots in a heap by the foot of my bed. That done, I whipped back my covers and dove onto the mattress. I had to bury my head under my pillows to block out the early-morning sunlight that had begun to stream in around the edges of our curtain. I knew I was going to sleep like a rock when I adjusted myself just a little and found that perfect position, that balance of comfort that I could only ever rarely attain, within seconds. It wasn’t long after that when I began to drift off. Annoyingly, though, just as my mind went blank and I would’ve fallen asleep, a pair of muffled voices from just down by the foot of my bed dragged my mind out of its wonderfully comfortable torpor. _Weird_ , I thought. I’d never heard the door open.

“Oh my gods, could you guys shut up? I’m trying to sleep,” I grumbled annoyedly from underneath the pillow-pile.

* * *

“That’s the second very close call you all have had since starting your mission to take down the syndicate.”

“Oh, there’d be others,” I replied as Pyrrha and I watched me push through the door of STRQ’s room and burrow into my bedding. “All things considered, that one went pretty well, though.” Pyrrha shot me a look. “Well, I suppose it could’ve gone better,” I conceded after a moment. She kept making that face, and I shrugged. “Oh, alright, fine. We almost died. Again.”

“Team RWBY seemed to get into a lot of situations like that. It’s a wonder they never got into more trouble than they did. Still, even though you all made it out of there, I don’t believe Tai was very pleased with the outcome. I’m sure it only made it worse that he was now aware that Trigger knew something about Jade’s death.”

“Yeah. I mean, I certainly knew this whole thing was very personal for him. I don’t think I, y’know, _really_ understood that until after I woke up though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see. Here, I’ll skip forward to this evening.”

“Oh.” Pyrrha nodded. I could sense her empathy for Tai’s situation, even though she’d never met him. Before I could focus enough to call up and latch on to the memory of the moment I woke up, my companion sighed. “Shortly after the start of our second semester, we had our first missions. Ren pushed to have us select very specific one, out in Anima. I didn’t know why at the time, but soon realized it was because it was personal for both him and Nora. I thought it strange that we were just shadowing a sheriff of some well-protected little village east of Mistral when we could’ve gone on a search and destroy mission to better hone our skills. Goodness knows, Jaune needed the experience actually fighting real grimm. Later I learned, though, that it was because Ren had been looking through mission reports from his home region in Anima and found mention of an unassociated and unnamed huntsman whose weapon seemed to be a large armored gauntlet of some kind. Nora… Nora thought it might’ve been her father, and Ren came up with the idea to take the mission we did because it would allow us to get close to the last known place that huntsman was seen.”

“Pyrrha, that’s impossible. I… We watched Val die. You heard Tai when I… Lost control of the memory. Back when we were watching my initiation? That really happened. He’s… Gone.”

“I know. I know that now, but I didn’t then. And Nora was really torn up when we didn’t get to follow up on that lead. When Ren did finally tell us about that report he’d read and Nora told us all what she remembered about her father’s weapon, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited. But then,” Pyrrha sighed. “That first attack by the grimm in Vale really ruined our plans. She didn’t show it… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nora without just the cheeriest demeanor but, somehow, we knew. Maybe it was the way Ren just stayed closer to her for a while after that, made her extra pancakes… And the fact that she made a point not to mention it or to quickly change the subject if any of us brought it up. It bothered her. A lot.”

I allowed my control on the veil to relax, no longer attempting to ‘fast forward’ to that evening. “I’m… Glad to know she hasn’t given up hope, at least. And that boy, Ren? He seems to be able to understand her in a way she really needs to be understood. I noticed that much about them as I watched teams RWBY and JNPR develop through your first year at Beacon. Speaking of that,” I said, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Are they…”

“What, ‘ _Together_ ’ together? Nora insists they’re not. I have a feeling that’s not really the case though. They need to hurry up and admit it,” Pyrrha said amusedly. “They’re head-over-heels for each other.” We shared a laugh at that.

“Tai was the same way about Raven,” I said.

“Really? Funny, he seems more like you two have a little chemistry, so to speak.”

“Yeah, I thought so too back then. That’s… I suppose that’s not what fate had in store for me.” My right thumb and forefinger went almost instinctively to my left ring finger and began twisting on a spot just below the lowest joint, a subconscious impulse like I used to do when twisting the rings that at one time rested on that finger. The same ones that the partner I’d left behind now wore in memoriam.

The two of us stood there for a moment, both of us quietly reflecting about what might’ve been. We didn’t get a chance to do this very often… I mean, that was the main reason we were going through my memories in the first place, to try and keep our minds off of recent events. But the initial shock and grief from the fall of Beacon was over, and I was finding it easy to keep my mind in control of the veil now that Pyrrha’s thoughts had stilled. I decided to allow the silent reflection to go on, rather than force my memories forward. I knew she was thinking about Jaune, and about her team. I was thinking about Qrow, about Tai, Yang… And mostly about Ruby. I wanted to check in on them, but I knew it had only been days since the last time I’d seen them. Nothing would’ve changed. The silence between my companion and I became palpable, after a time, but still we stood, utterly lost on our respective thoughts. I almost didn’t notice when our surroundings began to shift.

“Um… Summer?” There was a very definite note of nervousness in the girl’s voice. My mind snapped back to the moment and I looked around.

“Yes, Pyrr—Oh no.” The clear but intangible lines of our surroundings, that familiar, characteristic quality taken on by anything viewed through the veil began to drift out of focus. The color leeched out of the furniture, the walls, the sunrays that filtered through the curtain, everything.  I’d seen this kind of blurry, shifting grayscale haziness before, when Pyrrha and I had accidentally strayed into the dream-realm and found ourselves in the middle of a nightmare I’d had on my second day of school.

“Why is this happening?” Pyrrha said, a slight tinge of panic in her voice. I knew why she couldn’t help but betray a little of her fear… The last time we’d found ourselves crossing over into this alternate reality, that _thing_ , the monstrous wyvern that had been at the fall of Beacon, had found us, and the pain of our ‘deaths’ as it had killed us in this realm had been every bit as painful and terrifying as the deaths we’d died at the ends of our real lives.

“I...” I was at a loss for words. There was nothing I could think of that made sense, to explain why we were again drifting into the depths of my dreams whilst my younger self slept. “I don’t know. All I did was stay in the moment. I didn’t let the beyond take us to the next moment I remembered… I guess. I—I don’t know.”

“Oh my gods, could you guys shut up? I’m trying to sleep.” My own voice… Muffled, but unmistakable. It had come from deep beneath the pile of pillows where I’d nestled my head before drifting off. I realized then that my younger self didn’t realize that she was already asleep, and could hear me clearly.

“Oh no. Pyrrha, quick.” I whispered as I held out my hand. The instant my fingers brushed hers. I willed my semblance make us both disappear.

“Who’s Pyrrha?” Young Summer lifted the stack of pillows off her head and looked around. As far as she could tell, no one was in the room at all… But she definitely knew she was no longer alone. “Hey, who’s there?” Her tone was halfway between a question and a demand. “I know you’re in here. Might as well show yourselves.” My younger self swung her legs out of bed and into her slippers and stood, taking a few steps in the direction from which she’d perceived our voices. Pyrrha and I didn’t have anywhere to go. Our backs were to the wall…

 _Screw it_ , I thought. I let go of Pyrrha and allowed myself to reappear. Young Summer jumped back with a surprised yelp, instinctively reaching for where her weapons would be, had they not been piled on the floor haphazardly like they were now. “Who are you two?” She demanded.

Pyrrha looked at me, clearly a little surprised that I’d allowed her to see us, before turning back to young Summer and smiling. “Don’t be alarmed. My name is Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. And… I suppose you already know who this is,” she added, nodding her head in my direction.

Young Summer looked Pyrrha up and down before turning her gaze on me. “You’re...” I saw her eyes rest on my burning rose clasp, on my cloak, on the rose petals that danced about the floor from when Pyrrha and I had popped back into view. Finally, her eyes flashed up to meet mine. “You’re… Me, but… Older. How is this possible?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied. “This is only a dream.”

“I feel too awake to be dreaming right now,” Young Summer murmured. Her brow furrowed and she cast her eyes down as she thought for a moment. It didn’t take long for her focus to snap back up to us. “Wait. I’ve seen you two before.”

“You remember that?” Pyrrha asked.

“Of course! You two ran away down the stairs last time. I followed you out… Out to the memorial courtyard. When I got out there, you were gone.”

“We were still there, actually,” I smiled. “I’m just better at using my… Well, _our_ semblance than you are. What else do you remember?” Young Summer thought for a moment more, before tensing up.

“That black goop... Rising out of the ground. Just like the stuff I’d seen beneath that temple in Ancient Vale. I sank into it, but right before I went under… There was this grimm, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. I remember drowning… Then I woke up.”

“You didn’t remember anything when you did. I’m surprised you can recall it so easily now. I guess that means you can access deeper parts of our mind when you’re asleep, parts that are unavailable or unreachable when you’re awake.”

“Yeah, you might be right— _wait_. How do you know I couldn’t remember it?”

Pyrrha and I shared a glance. I knew with that look she was cautioning me about revealing too much regarding why she and I could peer through memories and shift into my younger self’s dreams. She had a point… Telling young Summer that she was about eleven years from giving up her life in a fight that would inevitably amount to only a temporary setback for Salem and her forces probably wasn’t a great idea. “It’s… That’s not important.”

“Mmmm, sorry. I think it is. You’ve already said you’re me but from the future. You know something you don’t want me to find out just yet.”

I sighed. Why’d I have to be so good at figuring things out? I could see it in my eyes… I’d already begun to suspect the truth. I was saved from having to come up with an answer when the latch to STRQ’s room clicked open and the door swung in. Qrow and Raven passed the threshold and cast glances at my bed. Their forms were gray and shifty too, like the rest of the room. I heard Qrow chuckle to his sister. “Out like a light. Figures. Wonder where Tai went off to.” His voice was muted and echoed strangely around the walls of the small room.

“Who cares?” Raven replied as she removed her segmented bracers and hung her sword and blade-drum on the coat rack. She set about removing her thigh-length boots as her brother looked from her to my bed and back.

“Y’know, she did save your life _again_. Might want to start acting like you give a damn one of these days.”

“Do you? Sounds to me like you’re getting too attached, brother.”

“So what if I am? These people aren’t like anyone we’ve known since Kurōbā. They’re worth giving a damn about. They’re not just in it for themselves like everyone back in the Tribe.”

Raven seemed to peer over at my bed, as if wanting to make sure I was actually asleep. She lowered her voice and murmured, “You know they’ll be the enemy when we go back, right?”

“I…” Qrow scratched the back of his head anxiously. “Yeah, yeah I know. I try not to think about it though.”

“You should think about it. Every day. Wake up and remind yourself why you’re here… So our people can thrive, and not ever have to worry about do-gooders like them again. We’re their future. What’s gonna happen if we get back to our clan and go on a raid, and that one girl you like on team GLDN is defending the village? You gonna go soft? You think I won’t cut you down if you have second thoughts about what we do? About who we are?”

“Leave Lilith out of this. I don’t just think you won’t, I _know_ you won’t, Raven.”

“And how do you _know_ that, pray tell?”

“Because you care too.”

“What… What are they talking about? What do they mean by ‘Raids’?” My younger self asked, clearly unable to believe what she was hearing. I remembered then that I hadn’t found out about the Branwen twin’s real reason for attending Beacon until well into my second year.

Raven’s annoyance at her brother’s suggestion was clear. “I do _not._ ”

“Yeah? You and I both know you wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help us out of that jam last week if you didn’t. It’s because you know Tai was like us once, right? Y’know, these city thugs aren’t that much different from our quote ‘family’ back at quote ‘home’, you know?” Qrow lifted his fingers and exaggeratedly threw up air quotes when he used the words to describe their bandit clan. “Murderers, thieves, wanted men and women, every single one of ‘em.”

“Are they… Bandits?” My younger self asked. “Like… Actual…” Qrow unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. There, clearly visible on his left outer tricep even through this weird, unstable grayscale version of the veil, was a brand. A scar just like the one the Xiong Clan had burned into Tai’s arm, marking him as their property. Qrow’s was in the shape of a screeching nevermore’s head. Young Summer saw the burn and gasped. “Oh my gods. I… I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t worry. They put that life behind them in time.” I reassured my younger self. I made a point not to mention that Raven eventually turned back to it after that final mission she went on for Ozpin.

“But they’re… Why are they here? How did Professor Ozpin not know what they were?”

“Oz doesn’t know everything,” I replied as Raven and Qrow’s conversation continued.

“They could’ve killed us. They’ve been the only family either of us can really remember,” Raven rationalized.

“No, you don’t remember our real family because you buried that part of yourself. I never did. I know we had a father who loved us. I know we had a mother—”

“Who died in childbirth because of you,” Raven hissed. “I _DO_ remember.”

“You _CAN’T_ blame that on me!” Qrow shot back, louder than he probably meant to.

“What the…” My younger self exclaimed, looking down at her arms. Pyrrha and I both turned our gazes to her, and watched as her outline faded in and out. “What’s happening? Why—” Before young Summer could finish the sentence, her form dissipated as her consciousness was pulled back to our body where it lay. Color began to fill the room once again, and outlines sharpened drastically as the fog cleared and Pyrrha and I crossed back into the beyond. I’d woken up. I heard myself yawn underneath my pillows, saw my feet shift as I stretched and grumbled with irritation beneath them. Qrow quickly covered the brand on his arm with his hand as I pushed my pillows aside and squinted out at the twins.

“What are… What are you two shouting about?”

“Qrow was the one shouting,” Raven said.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he apologized.

“I could hear you two in my dreams,” I murmured. Raven stiffened, but her face didn’t betray any concern as I continued. “Can’t remember what you were talking about, but… I dunno. Raven was mad about something, as usual.”

“Sounds about right. We’ll shut up now. Go back to sleep, it’s still early.”

“I’d love to. Keep it down alright?”

Qrow grinned. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Don’t call me boss. It’s weird.” My head dropped back to my pillows for a moment before I seemed to realize something. “Hey, where’s Tai? Figured he’d be back to the room by now.”

“Dunno,” Qrow replied. “Maybe he went to grab breakfast. We must’ve missed him on our way back.”

“Hm. Alright. Good night, guys. Er… Morning. Day. Whatever.” My pillows dropped back over my face and Qrow and Raven glared at each other.

“That conversation’s not over,” Qrow murmured angrily, low enough so that I wouldn’t hear him. Raven rolled her eyes and began taking off her kimono.

“Summer,” Pyrrha said, shaking my focus on the exchange. “Summer, unless you want to end up in your dreams again, we need to skip forward.”

“Right. Right.” Before my younger self had a chance to drift back to sleep, I concentrated. The beyond responded, suddenly blinking forward to that evening. There were no longer sun rays shining through the window, and the light that did penetrate our room was orangey and dusky, meaning the sun had dipped down far to the west by now. I didn’t wake up naturally. The latch to the door once again clicked open, and the door swung so abruptly open that it slammed into the doorstops with a resounding ‘ _THUDD’_.

“GUYS! _GUYS_!” Tai exclaimed as he burst into the room.

My younger self stretched and sat up, Qrow pulled his covers over his head and moaned his displeasure, and Raven cracked one glaring eye at our blonde teammate.

“What’s going… Wait. You’re just getting back? Where have you been all day?” I asked, realizing what time it was and that he hadn’t returned to the room at all since I’d last seen him that morning.

“I… I had something I needed to take care of. But once that was over, I went back out in town, and found _this_.” Tai retrieved something from inside his brown leather vest. I squinted through bleary eyes, realizing after a moment that the thing Tai held aloft was a book. A tattered, un-marked, brown leather-bound book.

“Is that…” I began to ask, a note of concern in my voice.

“Jade’s journal! I went back out to our old place and found it! Stuck around long enough to read the latest entries and… It’s just like we hoped. It gives us our first _REAL_ clue!”


	23. Dear Diary

**Chapter 23: Dear Diary**

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Tai, you _know_ how dangerous that was, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, dangerous, reckless, stupid—”

“Don’t forget pigheaded.” I interrupted.

“Sure, sure. Whatever. Nobody saw me.”

“Are you sure?” I pressed, knowing full well there was no way he could know that for certain. “And besides, that’s not the point. What if they had?”

“Well, they didn’t, Summer. Here,” Tai answered, waving off my concern dismissively and handing me the book he held in his hands. “Read the second-to-last entry. Dated the day before the police found her.”

I sighed, shooting Tai a look that said he wasn’t getting out of his careless self-endangerment that easily, before taking the journal and flipping through to the last pages with anything written on them. I decided then to read the entry out loud for Qrow and Raven to hear, too. “Alright. August seventeenth. Here we go: _Every once in a while, I love my job. Easiest buy I ever had walked right up to me on my way home from Trigger’s place this morning. Creepy guy in some kind of weird white robes. I’m guessing by the way he talked that he was some religious type, coulda swore he was tweaking off something by some of the weird crap he was mumbling, like about how ‘The Acolyte’ needed the dust for something or other…”_

I stopped reading. Tai looked at me confusedly, and Qrow motioned for me to continue. “What? Why’d you stop?” Raven asked. I shook my head. Dad had said that the people who’d killed my mother wore white robes… But that was just a coincidence. It must’ve been.

“Sorry. Just… I had a weird thought. Okay, where was I? _…Religious type… needed the dust for something or other._ Ok: _I didn’t listen past that point. His money talked loud enough. Wanted a BIG case of dust delivered. Showed me a fat stack of lien and shoved his shopping list into my hand. I’m putting the order in with Tater tonight, told the guy to meet me by the Vale cargo and customs office at 9pm tomorrow. Stupid, lazy government employees running the place leave work at 3 anyway, it’ll be a ghost town around there by that late. I’ll head over to Frankie’s office too, make sure mister fancy-pants Special Agent Asshole Valenti keeps the cops out of the area. This’ll be a cinch. Gonna put me way above my numbers for the year. Finally. I’ll be able to catch up on my rent, maybe even save some of the extra towards that vacation._ That’s it, _”_ I said, looking back to Tai.

“See? This confirms it. We know whoever killed her wasn’t with the Family, now,” Tai rationalized. “Some dude in white robes. Now, all we gotta do is track down Trigger and find out what he knows about the guy.”

“Slow down, man. How do you know some city thug wasn’t just dressing the part of a ‘religious type’ to throw Xiong people off his trail when he killed her? Coulda planned it that way. If anything, it kinda makes me think it was someone from one of those other, weaker families even more, now,” Qrow replied.

“Because Jade specifically told Tater she’d never seen the guy before, and this entry makes it sound like she’d never heard of any kind of religious cult or whatever that wore those kinds of robes in the city. Since she took over Frankie’s old job, it would’ve been her business to know _every_ kind of person she was likely to run into and how to deal with them. For her to think he was so out of place that she’d mention it in her journal… That throws up some flags to me.”

Qrow and I looked at each other dubiously before I turned back to Tai. “That… That’s _really_ reaching, Tai. Vale is a big city. For her to not know about some religious group or another isn’t that surprising. Especially if it was a fake out like Qrow said, and some Tsov or Tao was really the guy under the robes. Could’ve all just been a front to throw off the dealer and any monitors who saw the transaction go down.”

“Well, alright, what about the fact that Trigger directly referred to the guy as a _religious_ _nutjob_ back in the weapons cache. That’s different than the way Jade described him in her journal. That means Trigger’s run into the guy before, and got his own impression of him.”

“Mmm… Trigger calling the guy a nutjob kinda lines up actually with what the journal said. Your girl made it sound like the guy was more than a few steps down ‘Crazy Lane’ too,” Qrow said, shrugging. “How’d she put it? ‘Tweaking’? Yeah. Dude sounds like a whack job.”

“And did you miss the fact that Jade said she was _coming back_ from Trigger’s place _in the morning_?” Raven added. Her voice took on a sarcastic tone as she continued: “They probably talked about the buyer… Over _coffee_ or something.”

“What are you trying to say, Raven?” Tai growled, clearly not happy with what our cynical teammate was implying.

“By your tone, it sounds like you know exactly what I’m trying to say, Tai. How does that song go? ‘There ain’t no rest for the wicked, and money don’t grow on trees…’? Sometimes people just have to do what they can to survive.”

“Jade was _NOT_ that kind of girl.” I could’ve sworn I saw Tai’s eyes shift colors as his temper blazed, but decided I was imagining it when he glanced back to me and they appeared a perfectly normal blue.

“Right. Forget I suggested it,” Raven replied, waving dismissively. Tai glared at her for a moment, and I seriously thought he was about to swing on her. He didn’t, thankfully, instead sitting back down in the chair he’d pulled to the middle of the floor as he took a few deep breaths to bring down his blood pressure. Raven was not helping the situation with comments like that.

After he took those few moments to calm down, Tai sighed defeatedly. “All the money we made when we were in the Family went to our underboss, Mikael. We had quotas. If you passed your quota, you got to keep the extra. Other than that, the Family houses the youngest kids at my level in slum houses run by enforcers. The next step is getting your own place, which eventually she and I did. Between the two of us, we got paid enough to sorta keep up on rent and maybe buy food every now and then. We had to be careful how much we spent… You didn’t ever want to not meet your quota for a time period, because if you did you were likely to get some ‘motivation’ from your direct upline.”

“Motivation?” I asked.

“let’s see… Frankie broke my fingers one time, a rib another. Used to smack me and Jade around a lot if we didn’t make it. He... He tried to take advantage of Jade once too ‘cause she missed her ‘weekly’ by twenty lien, money she had to use to pay rent. _That’s_ why I know she’s not that kind of girl,” Tai said as he shot a look in Raven’s direction, before continuing. “I busted his nose and gave him one of those scars on his face with a broken beer bottle before he could touch her. He got back up and gave me these,” Tai pulled up his shirt and showed a grouping of identical scars maybe an inch wide spanning an area on the left side of his abdomen. “I wasn’t expecting him to pull a switchblade. Stuck me pretty good. Would’ve just killed me and dumped my body in the waste treatment plant, but Jade jumped in told him she’d work double to cover my quota and hers plus some if he didn’t. Said he could do whatever he wanted to her if she failed. He took the deal, she got me out of there and stitched me up back at that ratty old studio.”

I thought back to my recollection of the man I’d killed. Tai’s story was making it sound more and more like he really did deserve what happened. “That’s awful,” I said after a moment. “And? Did she make it?”

“Heh. Yeah. Ripped off some ginger kid from the Tao family who we’d seen around our turf, stole his take. Frankie was pissed when she brought him his money, then cranked up her quota permanently after that. I helped her make it from then on till I escaped.”

“Sounds like you two could really rely on each other,” Qrow said, shooting his sister a look that was clearly a wordless way of telling her to lay off with her ‘suggestions’. Raven remained unreadable. I could only hope she got the fact that, whether she was right or not, bringing it up and shoving it in Tai’s face was _not_ in the least bit necessary.

“Yeah. Yeah, we could. The vacation she’s talking about in that entry was one we’d planned on for years. Went to sleep most nights arguing about where we’d go. I liked beaches, she liked mountains… We never made enough to even begin planning the trip for real, but always said we’d make it big enough to be able to go wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted one day. That all changed after another friend of mine was just casually killed by his upline for speaking out of turn, though… Blew his brains out right next to me. I’d had enough. That could’ve been me, whenever Frankie wanted to, for whatever reason he dreamed up, the second he thought he could get along without me. I thought up that plan to get arrested and get shipped to juvy. It was a lot safer behind bars than it was on the streets. She didn’t want any part of it, had this look on her face like I was betraying her, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I had no idea Kent would just take me in instead of sending to the clink.”

“Why did you leave her?” Raven asked rather abruptly. All three of us turned to look at Raven, with Tai eyeing her suspiciously and Qrow and I hoping beyond hope she wasn’t about to suggest anything _else_. She noticed the glances and returned them each in turn with her trademarked glare. “What? I don’t mean anything by it. It’s a perfectly legit question. You two were all the other had. Might as well have been family. How could you just abandon her for your own ‘safety’ like that?”

“Hey, lay off, Raven. He was trying to survive. I’d think you of all people would appreciate that,” I retorted in Tai’s defense.

“It’s fine Summer. She’s right, it’s a fair question.” Tai turned back to Raven. “All these people we’ve been running into have called me a coward. Tater, Frankie, Trigger… Heck, Jade did too, right as I walked out our door the very last time I saw her. By their standards, they’re right. I am a coward. I’m a coward because I didn’t have what it took to hide my fear of the system, a system we were all stuck in together, behind this fake face that said I had everything under control. Despite everything she and I went through for those years… I never lost this hope that I could find something else to live for besides myself. She did, and that’s why she stayed.”

Raven nodded like she actually accepted the answer, but Tai wasn’t done. “Jade and I weren’t the only ones who had quotas. Trigger does too, I guarantee it. As does Mikael, all the way up to the people who sit at The Table. Only ones who don’t are Smiley Jones and the Patriarch himself. Smiley collects the dues for Jīn Xiong, and kills whoever doesn’t give enough in tribute. The system in this city is a dangerous machine that keeps the power up at the top. They feed enough hope down to us that we’ll someday be able to ‘make it’, but it’s a lie. A lie Jade bought, hook, line, and sinker because she couldn’t bring herself to consider that that’s all it was—empty hope. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I don’t have regrets. Going to a funeral for the only person who gave a damn about you your entire childhood has a funny way of making everything I just said sound like some weak crap. Heh,” he laughed mirthlessly. “Maybe it is.”

“Wait. Is that… You went to Jade’s funeral too, didn’t you?” I asked, suddenly aware that everything Tai was saying… It was overflow. He was no longer speaking to answer Raven’s question, but to get some things off his chest… The tear that dropped from his eye as he looked away from me and down at the floor was confirmation enough of that.

Tai wiped the tear and continued to gaze forlornly at the rug. “Yeah. I knew you wouldn’t be a fan of me going out in town after what we did last night, so I didn’t mention it. I was the only one there. Some preacher or whatever said a few words, yawned halfway through like he couldn’t be bothered. Headstone’s barely the size of a brick. Jade Twilight. Back corner of the public cemetery. Y’know, she made up that last name? Used to say she’d never change it, even if she found herself a guy. When it was over, I went straight to our old place.”

“I would’ve gone,” I said, swinging my legs out of bed and taking a few steps over to Tai. I put a hand on his shoulder, but he just shrugged.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know that. It’s over now, she’s in the ground. Only way to close this out is to find the guy responsible and make him pay. I’m gonna make him eat the dust he stole.”

“Alright. Well,” I said, looking at our other two teammates. “We’re not getting any closer to finding the him just sitting here. Did you find any other clues at the apartment?”

“No. I didn’t read that last entry in the journal though. Jumped on my bike and got back here after reading that same one you just did.”

“Well, let’s do it, then. Maybe there’s something we missed. Here.” I handed Tai the journal before pulling the chair from the other desk over and taking a set opposite him.

Tai sniffed, then cleared his throat, turning to the page with the silk bookmark in it. “Okay. August eighteenth. The day she died. _This is huge. I didn’t really get to see how much cash the guy from yesterday was holding, since he flashed it so quick. But the list he gave me—Holy crap. This is for at least seventy-thousand worth of the good stuff. The best uncut crystals money can buy. Dunno what he needs this stuff for, but I don’t care. And get this: I went to Frankie’s little office up at the police precinct we own in the Northside. MIKAEL WAS THERE. FREAKING. MIKAEL._

_“I can’t make this stuff up. A Regional. A friggin’ Table-member. Just sitting in Frankie’s office like he owned the place. I mean, he kinda does, but you know. It was fun to watch Frankie squirm when I told him about the deal and that I needed the cops outta the area. Mikael actually seems pretty legit. Told me that was big money, said I was showing serious promise. I already knew I’ve been putting up better numbers than Frankie EVER did when he ran my area. Probably because I don’t treat the kids working for me like expendable crap. But Mikael actually straight-up told me I’d been on the list for promotion for a while, and if this deal went through, I’d be taking the top spot the next time someone in the upline got a visit from Smiley._

_“Not gonna lie, I got a weird vibe from that robed guy. If Frankie wasn’t such a prick, I might’ve asked him to have a few of his enforcers there to back me up. But I gotta show Mikael I can take care of myself. Whatever my buyer’s deal is, that’s not my business. My business is to move merch and get paid. That’s it. And I’m damn good at it._

“ _In other news, there’s a rumor going around that our plants up at Beacon saw Tai…”_ Tai stopped and looked at the three of us. Even Raven looked a little surprised at the revelation.

“Wait, _what_? Plants? The Xiong’s have kids up here learning to be Huntsman?” I asked.

“She knew I was up here…” Tai said absently, not answering my question. Clearly, he’d gotten something else out of that last sentence in the journal than I had.

I wasn’t sure how to get him to focus on the more important development without coming off sounding like Raven. “Sounds like she did, Tai, but listen—”

“There’s more important things you need to focus on, blondie.” I actually didn’t have to worry about sounding curt. Raven herself did it for me, predictably throwing subtlety aside as she interrupted me. “Whether she knew or not. It’s more important is _how_ she found out.”

Tai looked at Raven blankly for a moment before his focus returned, and he sighed. “Yeah. I guess.”

“If it’s a student, you might recognize them, right?” Qrow postulated. “I mean, if they knew who you were, it’s most likely someone you used to run on the streets with.”

“No, haven’t seen anyone who looked familiar at all. If they’re our age, they might’ve been in another area of the city when I was with the Family,” Tai replied. “Could be professors, too. We don’t know.”

Qrow and Raven shared another of their little looks, one of the ones I always got the feeling meant more than what they appeared to. Qrow shrugged when he turned back to Tai and me. “Keep reading. Maybe she goes into it more.”

“Alright, yeah,” Tai agreed, looking back to the spot on the page he’d marked with his finger. “Okay. _Tater had his ear to the ground. Came by five minutes ago to drop the dust off here, said a monitor told him that word was they called his name when they were having their team naming ceremony or whatever, earlier tonight. ‘Team STRQ’. It’s bull. Gotta be. Tai is in juvy, they wouldn’t’ve let him out already, not after what he did to get in there. Dummy. Can’t imagine him as one of those Huntsman types. Still, that’d be pretty cool if it were true. Heh. Tai… Fighting grimm and saving the day. Far cry from picking pockets and stealing hubcaps for table scraps like the good old days._

_“He always did try to act like a hero, even if it almost got him killed. Gods know it would have if he’d have stayed. I’ve thought about it a lot… I really can’t blame him for leaving. He really wasn’t cut out for this life. I followed him out the door at our last foster home because he said he was going to go write his own rules. Never worked out the way he thought it would, and he and I were different like that. He was better at throwing punches than rolling with them, and I was better at adapting to what little life gave us, those few years we only had each other. He wanted results faster than the system allows, though, and that’s dangerous for anyone in the Family. There’s a part of me that’ll always wonder what things would be like today if he’d have stayed or if I’d have gone and gotten myself arrested with him._

“ _Guess it’s kinda pointless to wonder it now. He’ll always be him, and I’ll always be me. Guess us riding off into the sunset just wasn’t what destiny had in mind. Oh, what am I saying. I’m sitting here writing this like he’ll be reading it someday. I’ve gotta go take care of me. This big old case of dust I’m sitting on won’t go sell itself.”_ Tai stopped reading as he came to the bottom of the page, his face betraying… Well… Nothing. Finally, he closed the diary and murmured, “Yeah. I wonder too.”

“That didn’t tell us much,” Qrow said disappointedly after a moment.

“Are you kidding? It told us _a lot_.” I replied. “They’ve got people in this school. Can you imagine if some of those enforcers we’ve been fighting out there had auras and semblances, and knew how to use them?”

“I’d rather not imagine it at all,” Tai said.

“Okay, great. There are thugs in this school. What are we going to do about it? Not like we can just march up to the headmaster and tell him about it. First thing he’d do is ask how we know.”

“And that sounds like a good way to get expelled,” Raven finished for her brother.

“I’m thinking.” I replied simply. “We’ve got to figure out who it is without drawing attention to ourselves. We’ve gotta get them to expose themselves, too, or at least get them in so much trouble they get kicked out.”

“Again, that’s if it’s even a student,” Raven murmured.

“Alright. Whoever it is, I think figuring it out and getting them out of this school should be our focus moving forward.”

“Hey! I’m not just gonna let Trigger slink away, Summer,” Tai protested. “After today, the Family higherups are gonna realize that someone is trying to weaken their position in Vale. After what happened at the precinct and now with that weapons cache being knocked out of action, it’s not going to be long before they go on the offensive. They’re gonna come up here and try to track _us_ down.”

“You’re sounding almost as paranoid as Raven,” Qrow jabbed at Tai. “They’d have to have some serious guts to come after us on school grounds.” Standing, Qrow sidled over to the desk I’d gotten my chair from and leaned against it. “We’re as safe here as we would be if we were in our own private castle.” Just as he said that, the table-leg under the corner of the desk he rested on suddenly gave out, and the desk fell, with Qrow on it. The cacophonous crashing noise as the lamps and textbooks arranged on the shelf built into the desk fell and scattered across the floor, with Qrow sprawling to the ground in an undignified heap. The look of surprise and annoyance on his face was hilarious, but I didn’t have time to laugh. Less than a moment after he’d fallen, I heard a tiny ‘ _tink’_ noise followed in the same instant by a loud ‘ _SNAP’._

I’d heard the sound rifle bullets make when passing nearby before, but for whatever reason I was slow to come to the realization that we were under fire. My eyes looked to the origin point of the first, tiny sound, noting only then the fact that one of the window panes had been shattered. My subconscious instincts knew what was up before the thought ever entered my mind, and I reflexively turned my head to track where the bullet had gone. My eyes settled then on a hole in the wall directly beside where Qrow’s head had been before the table collapsed. If his semblance hadn’t caused the fall, he’d have been caught with his aura down. I responded out of pure instinct, my aura crackling to life as I tackled Tai, just as my mind registered another of those sharp ‘ _tink_ ’ noises. I felt the second shot skip off my now shielded shoulder blades in my desperate dive to get my team member out of the unseen assailant’s crosshairs. It hit the door, undoubtedly passing through the hall into GLDN’s room as well.

“GET _DOWN!_ ” I shouted at Raven, who rolled off her bed to the floor and retrieved and unsheathed her sword. I grabbed Thorn, whatever little good it would do against a sniper, and brought it to full extension as well. I lay there, half on-top of Tai, and listened for the report of the assailant’s weapon. Another bullet zipped in, this time unexpectedly right through the wall down beneath the window. It tagged me cleanly on the shoulder, sending intense ripples through the protective field and causing me to wince from the jarring impact, painful even though the bullet never broke skin. I never heard the faint, distant sound of a gunshot. A suppressed weapon. Worse still, the sniper knew where we were in the room, somehow, even though there was no way he could see us through the window anymore. To punctuate that realization on my part, another bullet pierced the base of the wall beneath our window and hit Tai in the ankle as he crawled to get behind the heavy desk where it lay.

“You were saying?” Raven growled to her brother as another shot punched through the wall and only barely passed over her head.

 


	24. Round Two

“So, _nobody_ followed you back, huh?” Raven growled as the round zipped over her.

“You’re _hilarious,_ ” Tai shot back. “Isn’t this building made of stone? How are those shots getting through that?”

“No idea,” I admitted. “We gotta get out of here, though. Sniper can’t see us, but they obviously don’t need to.”

“All of you, make a break for it, I’ll block what I can!” Qrow shouted, jumping up with Curse in-hand. He held it with its broad face angled like a shield towards the shooter and braced his body against it.

“No, wait! Qrow!” I protested the stupidly heroic idea. Another shot tore through the window and tagged the face of my teammate’s heavy transforming blade with enough force to throw Qrow into the back wall of the room, dazing him and causing a slight red flicker as his aura took the hit.

“ _Ow…_ ” I heard him moan as he clutched the back of his head from where it’d smacked into the wall. Raven had already started moving to make the door, but with her brother out of position she was wide open to the next shot. It caught her squarely in her left shoulder, spinning her around as her aura compensated, and she was thrown forward as she fell, gasping and crying out in pain. Tai threw himself in front of her, using his aura to shield her as best he could while Raven clutched her shoulder and growled through her rage and frustration at having been hit.

I didn’t know what to do. Two of my teammates were down, and the shooter was still slinging rounds indiscriminately through the wall as he raked the room with steady fire. As long as we couldn’t stick our heads up and return fire or make a dash to escape, we were easy marks. The situation looked bad… Until a mechanical fist punched through our lock, causing the door to our room to violently swing inward as Val and Natalia charged in. Talia tossed Deadlift to the floor and threw her hands up forward, gritting her teeth with effort. The bright orange glow of her semblance, an impenetrable, directional barrier of energy that she could cast in front of her spread out like a broad, protective umbrella that covered everyone in the room. Another shot slammed into that barrier through the window, and even the powerfully built girl was forced to stagger back as the bullet vaporized against it.

“Gretch! Anchor!” She called.

“Got it!” Her team leader replied, leaping through the threshold of our doorway and planting her hand right between Talia’s shoulder blades. Purple energy rippled from my friend’s arm and over Talia’s aura just as several more rapid shots hit the broadly-projected energy field. This time, Natalia didn’t even budge, like she’d become as immovable as the building itself. “Is everyone okay?” Gretchen asked, the sounds of bullets blasting through the stone wall and clinking through the window only increasing in frequency.

“Couple of us took some hits. I’m good. Qrow?”

“I’m good!” Qrow groaned as he stood.

“Tai?”

“Good!”

“Raven?”

“Don’t worry about me.” She growled.

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Translation: She’s fine.”

“Shuddup, Qrow!” Raven was clutching her shoulder, which hung limply at her side like the impact had dislocated it, but we didn’t have time to debate with her if she were actually injured or not.

“Alright. Come on, let’s get out of here,” I urged, scooping my belt with Scourge and bracer with Thorn off the floor where they lay and throwing them on over my comfy flannel pajamas. Tai helped Raven to her feet, but she pulled annoyedly away from him and went for the door on her own. He stopped, turning to look back out the window with an expression that told me he was about to try something stupid. “Tai! Let’s _go_!”

“No.”

“What do you mean, _no?_ ”

“We can’t lose the shooter. If we waste time running downstairs to go after ‘em, they’ll disappear.” Tai turned to Val, who stood just to Talia’s right as he peered through her barrier and tried to locate the shooter. “Val! Fastball!” he shouted, scooping his old tonfas up and racking concussive rounds into them.

“Tai! You can’t be serious! You’ll get shot out of the air!”

“No, he won’t,” Talia said, reaching one hand out towards Tai. “It doesn’t last that long, so make it count.” As she spoke, her forward-facing field dimmed as some of its energy was pulled back and redirected through the hand she angled at my teammate. Tai’s golden aura flickered once or twice as it was covered by a secondary barrier of the same orange as Talia’s semblance.

“Nice,” Tai said, grinning as he looked at his forearms and the thick, radiant double barrier that now covered them.

“Summer, get behind me. I’m going to have to drop part of my barrier when Val throws, or Tai’ll just bounce off.” Talia cautioned. I did as she said, and she nodded at Val. “Ready?”

“Ready, load it up! Gretch, boost it!” Val replied, arm cocked back and prepared to sling my teammate after the assailant.

“Right!” Gretch shouted back, releasing her anchoring hand on Talia and somersaulting to the right as Tai balled himself up on the open palm of Magnhnefi, just like he had in the cistern during initiation. Just as Val’s arm began to swing forward and he pivoted into the fastball, Gretch sprang out of that low forward roll she’d taken, repositioned directly behind the arc of Val’s arm. Ahead of her hands there formed a wave of pure redirected gravity that she transferred into Val’s forearm with a grunt and a shove from behind. The speed of the already blindingly fast team maneuver visibly doubled, and Tai _shot_ through the window with an added blast from his old shotgun tonfa, rocketing into the dusky sky beyond. He streaked like a golden tracer, sailing over the rooftops of the next two dorms towards Val’s best guess at the sniper’s location.

“Alright, _now_ we go,” I urged. Natalia grabbed Deadlift while keeping her weakened barrier up. Shots had stopped pounding into it… The shooter was probably shooting at Tai now as he pressed his assault. Though that meant we were more or less out of harm’s way, the thought wasn’t in the least bit comforting. That was, until I had an idea. “Raven!” I called, dashing out into the hall of our suite.

“What—” _CRRRAACK! “OOOWWWW!!! Damn…_ What, Summer?” She hissed, replying just as Qrow reset her shoulder. I think she was more irritated at the fact that I’d seen her injured than she was at the pain of her shoulder being popped back into place.

“I need you to make a portal to Tai. He went after the shooter alone.”

“Oh, so you weren’t just asking if I was alright?”

“Waste of time. You’d only tell me just to worry about myself if I did. We need it _now_ , Raven. We’ll never catch up to him on foot, and he’s alone out there,” I urged.

Raven scowled, probably because she knew I’d gotten to a point where her sarcasm didn’t faze me anymore, and grabbed her sword after rotating her shoulder around to chase away some of the soreness. “Stupid idea, letting him go alone.” _SCHWING!_ Her weapon parted a glowing rift in thin air and she turned back to me. “Alright, let’s _go_.” The familiar eerie hum of her semblance echoed in the strange silence of the hallway. Here, it was hard to conceive we were under attack at our own school. It became much, much easier to believe once I burst out into the courtyard behind Tai.

The well-aimed, rhythmic barrage of shots that had been pinning us down in the room had become rapid torrents of automatic gunfire, fired from up on one of the arched colonnades that ringed the commons ahead of us. Bullets cracked into the pavers and zipped over our heads, and I could distinctly see the muzzle flash from the weapon ahead.

Two-hundred meters out, twenty-five meters up atop the colonnade. A few rounds were fired my way, which I dodged. I don’t think our shooter was expecting the sudden appearance of two full teams of Beacon students. The firing pattern suddenly became far more frantic and desperate as we pushed his firing position at a full charge, all falling into an unrehearsed formation with Tai right up front. The extra forcefield that Natalia had given him died out, but he charged on doggedly, ignoring the occasional round that flashed past his head or skipped off his aura.

Suddenly, I saw several red streaks whizz over my head from behind and I ducked, reacting to my immediate thought that there was now a second shooter was opening up on us from the rear. Looking back, I saw several more of those whistling flashes appear and fly over our heads from a point back near where we’d emerged from Raven’s portal. Only then did I realize that Lilith had stayed back, opening fire with Silverfang, her bow. The red streaks were caused by tracer lights in the broadheads, and every shot Lilith took was laser-accurate, whipping past the shooter as he was forced to break fire to dodge. As the arrows passed their mark, they flashed with brilliant white light, like flashbang grenades delivered on the end of each shaft. With each bright explosion of light, I was able to get a clear silhouette of our shooter… And recognized him almost immediately from the remaining seventy meters we had to go as we continued our charge.

Trench coat, body armor… And a gleaming prosthetic right arm that wasn’t covered in synthetic flesh like the one Val had destroyed had been. “It’s Trigger!”

“I see him,” Tai shouted back. “He’s _not_ getting away this time!”

“Dude just doesn’t know when to give up, huh?” Qrow added.

I shrugged. “Apparently not. We’ll thank him for that when we run him down. Fan out, it’ll be harder for him if he’s got to spread his fire!”

“On it!” Gretchen and Tai replied. Several of the others nodded and broke formation, taking up new positions in a line with several meters between each other. I was right. Trigger now had to divide his fire ineffectually against individual, nimble targets, none of whom had any intention of making his job easy.

As we drew ever closer, I saw Gretch swing Quake over her head mid-stride. The tip of the six-foot sword embedded in the ground in front of her, and she vaulted over it. At the apex of her body’s arc over her weapon she seemed almost to hang upside down, balanced with one hand on the pommel of her sword. But it was only a moment, and her momentum continued to carry her over her weapon. Her aura glowed a more brilliant purple than usual as she increased the gravitational influence of her own body on the backside of the leap, effectively multiplying her own bodyweight as she came sailing down. Her booted feet cratered the pavers of the thoroughfare as she landed, and she threw all that inertia into an immensely powerful overhead swing of her sword. Quake ripped over her head with speed and power that still shocked me every time I saw my friend wield the massive weapon. As that silver blur plowed through the air in front of her, she pulled the trigger on the hilt and broke its built-in energy storage loop. The pent-up power of an entire gravity dust crystal was released all at once along the gap in the split spine of the buster sword, creating a _massive_ violet shockwave that Trigger didn’t have time to react to before it slammed into his position.

The gravity blast impacted with such force that the section of the colonnade that the assassin had been firing from was utterly obliterated. Chunks of stone masonry and concrete from half of the arch were blasted into the sky beyond, and Trigger along with them. However, he recovered from his head-over-heels tumble surprisingly quickly… And my heart sank as a blue glow from his back signaled the firing up of a thruster pack he wore strapped to his back.

“GET _BACK_ HERE, you _COWARD!”_ Tai shouted after Trigger as the assassin picked up speed and began to swoop away. My teammate began firing long-range concussive blasts as fast as he could from his old tonfa, but they just didn’t have the range to knock Trigger out of the air.

Just as I cut my stride and resigned to the knowledge that we were going to lose our only other lead yet again, another of Lilith’s arrows streaked overhead. I thought I saw the shaft intercept our mark in the dusky sky, but it was hard to tell for sure. For a moment nothing happened, and my heart sank. She’d missed… Or had she? Suddenly, a stream of smoke began spilling out from Trigger’s personal jetpack, and all three of the glowing nacelles flickered and cut out. A little pinprick of orange light grew and became a flame that and licked out behind the now-falling assassin.

“Holy— _Nice shot,_ Lil!” Gretch shouted back to her teammate. I could barely even _see_ the petite young girl from this distance… And she’d just tagged a moving target at four-hundred meters with a bow and arrow.

“Come on! He hasn’t gotten away yet!” I shouted, urging the group forward. The seven of us surged forward, and presumably Lilith too, though from significantly further behind. I saw Trigger shed his burning thruster pack mid-air as he dropped like a rock towards one of the small parks that lay just on the other side of the colonnade from the commons. He smashed into the ground ahead of us, and didn’t move for a few moments after that. That gave us plenty of time to close the distance.

I hoped for a moment that he was out cold, but that hope was dashed when he leapt to his feet and began firing wildly with his modular rifle yet again. “Just _DIE_ , you stupid _KIDS!”_ He shouted furiously, blood leaking from a gash on his forehead that was probably sustained in the fall. I was able to block several shots with Thorn as we pressed forward. Talia charged forward too, energy barrier up, laying down answering fire with Deadlift that put Trigger on his back foot trying to dodge the potentially devastating blasts from the weapon. Val stayed close behind, using the cover of her barrier to close in. We were growing closer, and Trigger’s escape options were limited. I saw him grab something from his belt with his left hand, wielding the heavy rifle with his cybernetic right arm and never letting up the rapid, desperate fire as he lobbed the small, round object he’d retrieved with his off-hand towards us.

“ _GRENADE!!!”_ Gretchen shouted.

“Get behind me!” Talia replied, planting herself and growling with effort as she boosted the size of her protective barrier once again. Tai, Raven, Qrow and I dove to cover just in time. The explosive bounced off of the golden field, the violent blast that followed causing my jaw to ache and ears to ring. Talia was pushed back, hobnailed boots leaving ruts in the dirt as the force of the explosion shoved her back. The barrier wavered as tons of point-blank shrapnel was vaporized against it. Trigger hadn’t stopped shooting, and several bullets from his rifle stabbed through the weakened semblance. Though significantly diminished in power, they were enough to tag Talia at a weak moment and stun one of her arms. She dropped Deadlift and cried out angrily, before gritting her teeth through the pain and yanking her massive blaster up once again. “Barrier down!” She warned as her semblance finally faltered. We needed to end this quickly. The closer we got, the harder it would be to deflect his shots.

Trigger was clearly enraged and frustrated at this point. We were driving him back and on the verge of surrounding him. He dropped his rifle and grabbed two more grenades off of his belt, one in each hand, ripping the pins out with his teeth and flinging them, one towards GLDN and one towards us.

“Incoming again!” I shouted, pulling back with Scourge and preparing to lash the projectile out of the air and hopefully far enough away to not cause significant damage to any of our remaining auras. All of us had taken hits, and none of us could take the blast any closer than five or ten meters without sustaining real injury.

“Got it!” Tai hollered back in answer, heedless of that fact as he charged straight towards the dangerous explosive as it arced towards us.

“Tai! What are you—” I didn’t get to finish my shocked inquiry before Tai launched himself forward, propelled by repeated shots from his tonfas. In what should’ve by now been a trademarked move for him, he blasted himself into a spin mid-air, whipping one of the weapons around from behind his back and whapping the grenade back the way it came like it was a large, deadly baseball. The powerful explosive blew halfway back towards Trigger, blasting Tai back and causing the assassin to shield his face to protect his eyes from the brilliant flash and shrapnel. Tai was caught up in the shockwave and tumbled to the ground almost at our feet. I dashed towards him, sliding to one knee to make sure he was alright. Before I could pull the small medical kit off my belt, he sat up and raised a feeble ‘thumbs up’. “You idiot,” I scolded him. The grenade that had been hurled towards GLDN exploded a safe distance from all of us, but I hadn’t noticed how they’d batted it away. It didn’t matter, Trigger had reclaimed his rifle. I figured that meant he was out of grenades.

“Worked, didn’t it?” He grumbled, pulling himself to his feet with a groan. His aura flickered weakly, but didn’t spread back across his body. Now he _definitely_ couldn’t take another hit without real injury.

“Stay back. We’ll take care of this.” Gretchen, Val, and Talia were keeping Trigger busy for now. We had a moment.

Tai waved me off stubbornly, swaying on his feet. “No way… I’m… I’m good…”

“No, you’re not. Stay back, blondie. Wait for my signal. Get your semblance ready.”

“But I can still—”

“Tai. Trust your team. We got this. Raven, Qrow! Let’s not let GLDN have all the fun!”

“Right behind you, Summer,” Qrow said with a grin, extending Curse into its full scythe-form.

“Might as well,” Raven added unenthusiastically from beside her brother. She drew her sword, a yellow shock-dust blade sliding from her scabbard and doubling in length as she flicked her wrist to extend it further.

“Raven, when we get close enough, portal to Tai. He’ll take care of the rest,” I said as I charged in alongside the Branwen twins. Raven didn’t respond, and for a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me. Trigger drew his nickel-plated pistol, the one with the extendable blade he’d stabbed me with back in the stockpile, unloading it with his left hand towards Qrow as he continued firing the energy rifle over towards GLDN. My teammate blocked the shots aimed his way easily, and the few seconds Trigger spent shooting at Qrow created a chance for Raven to outflank him. He was able to parry her sword-strikes again and again with his own metal arm, each time taking damage but still stopping the furious onslaught of Raven’s slashes. “Raven! Now!” I shouted at her. She was wasting time trying to attack Trigger directly. We needed to overwhelm him.

She looked back and glared at me, and that moment was all Trigger needed to spin around and boot her sword-hand as hard as he could. The nodachi flew from her grip and out of reach. I thought the plan was shot, and we’d have to do this the hard way, until Raven simply ejected another blade from her drum and grabbed it with her bare hand. With it, she clove a portal right behind the assassin as he tried to follow up on his attack on a girl he must’ve perceived as an easy mark. Before he could land a blow, a glowing, golden fist flashed through the rift to Trigger’s right and smashed into the assassin’s jaw. I looked back over to Tai, who had his arm buried up to the shoulder in the portal that had opened up by him. He’d followed through the punch so hard that Trigger went sailing back, utterly stiff as he slid to a pained stop and we surrounded him.

“Game over, Trigger,” I growled at the man on the ground, as my blonde-headed teammate stepped the rest of the way through the portal to rejoin us and Raven closed the semblance. I kicked the pistol out of his right hand as Val ripped the modular rifle out of his left, and an assortment of blades were leveled at his throat: Thorn, Quake, Curse, even Tai’s extendable blades in his tonfas and the broad point that could extend from Magnhnefi’s forearm, daring the immobile assassin to test us.

“The heck were you thinking was going to happen, attacking us up here, on our turf?” Qrow added questioningly. “You shoulda known you were headed for a beatdown. Don’t have your fancy tech to block our aura here.”

Trigger managed to contort his face into a scowl and glared at us all in turn, before struggling to reply through his paralysis. “Didn’t… Have much of a choice. That was over a billion worth of weapons in my stock, gone now because of you brats.”

“What, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for you or something?” Raven shot back, having scooped her blade off the ground nearby and rejoining the group. I noticed then that blood dripped from her fingers where she’d gripped one of her own blades to cut the portal.

“Pft. As if I’d _want_ your pity. The people I work for? The word ‘pity’ ain’t even in their vocabulary. If I didn’t gun you kids down, or die trying, I was a dead man as far as the Table is concerned.”

“You’re a dead man, anyway, once the justice system gets its hands on you. The last person who should be talking about pity. You’re a hired gun. An assassin. You’ve killed how many dozens of people? And all just because someone paid you to do it.” Tai replied.

“A lot more than a few dozen, kid. I’m kinda good at my job. And I don’t care how many more I’d have to kill if it meant claiming my place in Jīn Xiong’s new order.”

Tai growled and planted his heel into Trigger’s ankle, bearing down hard enough to twist the joint unnaturally and cause the cybernetic assassin to wince. “That’s a sick thing to take pride in, asshole.”

“What _new order_?” I demanded.

“Doesn’t matter to you. Just know… This city? The little people in it? It’ll all belong to the Family before long. And it seems neither you or I are going to be around to see what it’ll become once the Patriarch claims it. It’s like your boyfriend said, girlie,” Trigger grinned, nodding stiffly at Tai. “I’m a dead man, alright. But not because of this town’s stupid _justice system_. We own that, anyway. I’m still gonna get… My marks.” I realized too late that he’d been faking his mechanical arm’s paralysis as we’d been speaking. Apparently, Tai’s attack had no effect on it. Trigger’s metal fingers shot into the pocket of his tattered trench coat and closed on something before any of us could stop him. As he withdrew it, I realized the small, pen-like device had a red button on the end… A detonator. Trigger grinned, clicking down on the button and pulling aside his coat with his other hand as it recovered from the paralyzing effects of Tai’s stunning attack. Suddenly the realization hit all of us. He was the bomb. Bricks of plastic explosive, the same kind that we’d seen in his stockpile, were taped to his body armor. All of our auras were still in a weakened state. He managed an exhausted and pained maniacal laugh, before continuing to gloat.

“Checkmate, kids. Deadman switch. Nice, right? Don’t bother running, got enough high-ex on me to bring this whole academy down. And…” Trigger warned to Raven as she readied her sword to cut his prosthetic off. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, sweet thing. Cut my arm off, it lets go of the switch, everyone here dies. Oh, I put a delay on it. Five seconds. Just long enough to watch your reactions… The knowledge that you’re all about to die, the looks on your faces… After what you kids did to me, it’s only fair that I do the same to you.”

I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do… Fortunately, I didn’t have to. “Students,” a new voice broke in from nearby. I instantly recognized the rumbling, deep quality of the new arrival’s tone.

“Doctor Hargrave?” I asked, turning to face him. “Professor, get back! He’s got a bomb!”

“I’m well aware of the situation, Miss Rose.”

“You want to die too, then, you old geezer?” Trigger shouted from the ground, waving the detonator in the air to show the professor the deadly nature of the threat as he walked calmly towards our group.

“No. I’m too old to die in some punk’s poorly conceived suicide attempt. Now, students, the Headmaster and I are going to need you…” The Dean paused to inhale deeply, what I soon found out to be the calm before the storm. A moment later he seemed to physically unleash the end of his sentence, almost throwing himself into the next three words with power I didn’t know he possessed. “…To _GET BACK!!!”_

I didn’t _hear_ those last words the Dean spoke so much as I _felt_ them. They were uttered differently from his normal tone, and the very air seemed to become solid as they reached us. The simple command thudded into us with a force like a hurricane—no, three hurricanes—and hurled all eight of us clear across the school grounds. I tumbled to a stop forty meters from the scene, slamming into a bench beneath a large forever fall maple. Qrow sailed into the tree itself, becoming caught up in the branches after hitting the trunk and ricocheting through them on his way to the ground. Tai and Raven both splashed into a reflecting pool just beyond, and the members of team GLDN likewise were blasted hither and yonder about the school grounds around us. I shook my head to clear it of the disorientation that had set in, before realizing that, less than a meter from me, the detonator lay in the grass. A light on the device blinked once every second… One time, two times, three…

A green flash from the point where Hargrave stood and Trigger lay drew my attention from the blinking light. Four seconds… Five… I realized the green flash had been the Headmaster as he’d seemed to just… _Appear_ by the still-stricken assassin. His movements were a blur of emerald-green light. I couldn’t see exactly what had just transpired, from this far away. Six seconds. The bomb should’ve gone off by now. Seven, eight. The Headmaster turned from where he stood and waved us over to return. _No way._ Had he disarmed it?

Tentatively, I began to walk towards the two huntsmen, who stood over Trigger as the latter’s shocked and dismayed expression became ever clearer the closer I got. Hargrave hoisted the dumbfounded assassin from the ground by his metal arm and threw him towards a team of Campus Security officers and other professors that emerged from behind the cover of the colonnade a few meters away. I watched as he was cuffed and dragged off, before looking back to Professor Ozpin and Dean Hargrave. As I grew even closer, I noticed the handful of wires that were clenched in the Headmaster’s hand. He shoved them into the pocket of his jacket when he noticed my gaze drawn to them, and smiled. “I hope you and the other members of your team are alright, Miss Rose. Believe me, I know from… Shall we say firsthand experience, Doctor Hargrave’s semblance can be unpleasant to be in the receiving end of. A necessity, to ensure you all were protected in the event I didn’t quite get all of the wires out of the assassin’s suicide vest in time.”

“We’re… I think we’re fine, uh…. Sir. I—How did you—”

“How did I know there was an assassin on the school grounds? Why, the explosions, of course. That, and it seems Mister Häyhä was not quite up-to-date on his intel about our security systems here. When he began firing, I got an alert at my desk almost instantaneously. Micro drone footage showed your two teams handling the situation admirably, but once it became clear that he’d been desperate enough to wire himself with explosives should he fail, the Dean and I decided to step in.”

“You knew we were under attack for that long and you did nothing?” Raven asked, obviously irritated at the revelation.

“As I said, you students had the situation in-hand. Consider it training. You all should have known that would happen. The Xiong syndicate is not to be trifled with,” Hargrave grumbled. My heart sank.

“You… Knew about all that?”

“Of course we did, child,” the Dean guffawed in his typical blustery, deep tone. “I pushed to have you all expelled for breaching the trust our Council has in this institution. Trust that we Huntsmen will not use our martial abilities, abilities that far outstrip those of the military or police, to intervene where we are not authorized—"

“But,” Professor Ozpin interrupted, “As I said to you the other day, Summer. Sometimes it’s better to ignore our Dean’s… suggestions. The council has its purpose. But, they are often a shortsighted group, and it is their indifference that has allowed the Syndicate to slowly overrun Vale over the last twenty years. I have been working very hard for a very long time to delay their progress, but we’ve clearly reached a tipping point. In the relatively short time since your arrival at this academy, it seems your two teams have managed to get the Family’s attention. Enough that they’d even be so bold as to attack you on school grounds. This puts me in an unenviable position, you see, because a precedent has been set. Keeping my students reasonably safe whilst training them to fight the monsters beyond our walls becomes far more difficult when I also must make provisions for their safety from the monsters within the walls as well.”

“We’re… Sorry to have put you in that situation, professor…” I tried to apologize, but the Headmaster held up his hand.

“Which is why I’ve decided that your punishment will simply be to leave your own safety up to you. Clearly, based on what I know of your activities, I cannot stop you eight from pursuing… Whatever goal it is you have as your endgame. And if I get involved, well, where’s the training value of that? You students seem to already see yourselves as ready to take on bigger challenges, I dare not dissuade you. But know, that I will never intervene in the interest of your safety again.” With that, the Headmaster turned and walked off calmly.

Professor Hargrave continued to stare us down for a moment more. I met his gaze nervously, certain he had something else to say. As if waiting its cue, the other half of the arch that had, until now, remained suspended wholly by the strength of its own mortar alone, began to crumble. I winced at the sound of every shattered stone in the masonry as pieces of the half of the arch that Gretchen hadn’t gravity-blasted into oblivion began breaking off in larger and larger chunks, smashing against the ground below until it all had fallen completely and come to rest in a dusty pile of rubble at the base of the still-standing support column. Hargrave cast an eye back at the ruined architecture, rolled his eyes, and stalked away too, without a word. It was abundantly clear that he disagreed with the Headmaster’s call… But I supposed there was little he could do to overrule it.

“Well… That went better than expected,” Gretchen said.

“Did it?” I asked.

“Yeah… I mean, didn’t it? We didn’t get in trouble.”

“Gretch… He knew the whole time, what we were up to, what we were doing. He could’ve come to help, any time he saw that we were in big trouble. At the construction site. In the police precinct. In the weapons cache. He’s known about it all, and never came to bail us out once… Until now.”

“So?” Raven prompted. “He just said he’ll leave us alone from here on out. That’s a good thing, in my book.”

“But it’s different now, Raven,” I replied. “All those times before, he could’ve come to help, but he didn’t because he must’ve somehow known we’d make it out alright. He might’ve known, but there were times during a lot of those instances where I wasn’t sure we would make it at all. And now, after all that before, something comes up that he knew we couldn’t handle.”

“Guess I’ll repeat myself. So?”

“He means we’re really on our own now, and the bad guys are only gonna get stronger, smarter, and more dangerous as we keep going.”

“She’s right,” Tai confirmed. “Trigger had a rep, but he’s a gecko compared to Smiley. You _do_ know, don’t you? That’s where all this is headed now. We’re too deep to pretend it never happened, and for the first time it might be _them_ hunting _us._ Either the Syndicate falls, or we do.”

“Well fine. I say bring it. You all might be afraid now with no stupid Headmaster watching your back, but my brother and I aren’t.”

“Stop trying to sound tougher than you are, Raven,” Qrow said. Raven scowled at her brother for undermining the proud bravado of her statement, but he continued anyway. “We’ve all almost died. A few times, actually, and you’re no exception. But we’ve always pulled through by relying on each other. As stupid of an idea as that is, especially with me in the mix, it’s the only way any of us are going to make it out of our first year alive. Right, Raven?”

“I don’t—”

“ _Right,_ Raven?” Qrow repeated, his voice lowering into an almost threatening growl.

He and his sister stared each other down for a few tense moments, before Raven sighed. “Only because I’ll be an easier target if the rest of you get murdered first. Just like dad always taught us, eh, baby brother? Stronger together?”

“Dad never taught us that. Thrace did. Don’t get the two mixed up, sis.”

“Whoever. They’re right, and that’s why I’ll help. Not because of any of you.” Her eyes rested on me for a moment longer than everyone else, as if to make it clear we were still very much _not_ friends.

 _Don’t worry_ , I thought. _Friends we sure aren’t._ But I supposed this was the first time I could count on her motives to make her a decent ally.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress that I hope will one day amount to a true epic within the RWBY canon universe. I want Miles and Kerry to read this story one day, turn to each other after they've finished, and simultaneously exclaim, "Why haven't we made this a spinoff yet?" That's a lofty goal, I know, and it would require no small amount of fandom support to give it the notoriety it needs for that to happen.  
> That's why I always work hard to maintain good, interactive dialogue with my readers and fellow writers alike. I want this to be OUR story, not just mine. Yes, mine are the fingers that do the typing, and mine is the mind that makes the final decision on the way the narrative unfolds. However, I know for a fact each and every one of you reading this has something you could contribute to the story, be it a plot point, a theory you're fond of, an OC you think could port over with permission, anything and everything. My *Virtual* door is always open, shoot me a message and I'll reply as quickly as possible. Let's build this story! Onward! To the Next Chapter!


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